{"id":317955,"date":"2026-04-13T12:06:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T06:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=317955"},"modified":"2026-04-13T12:06:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T06:36:35","slug":"nba-playoffs-seeding-play-in-games-are-set","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/04\/13\/nba-playoffs-seeding-play-in-games-are-set\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA playoffs seeding, play-in games are set"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"FOR_target_content\">\n<div id=\"attachment_671269\" style=\"width: 1210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\">\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-671269\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) goes to the basket against the Los Angeles Clippers center Brook Lopez (11) through the second half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, April 12, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo\/Ethan Swope)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>MIAMI \u2014 The play-in tournament field is about, and identical to that the postseason has arrived within the NBA.<\/p>\n<p>First up: an elimination game in Charlotte. The ninth-place Hornets will tackle the Tenth-place Miami Heat on Tuesday night (7:30 p.m. Eastern) in a win-or-go-home game to open the play-in tournament.<\/p>\n<div id=\"billboard_article\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<i id=\"art_cont\" style=\"color:#85A7BF;\">Article continues after this commercial<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n<h4>The remainder of the play-in schedule:<\/h4>\n<p>\u2014 West No. 7 Phoenix meets West No. 8 Portland on Tuesday (10 p.m. Eastern), with the winner moving on to face Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs in Round 1.<\/p>\n<h4>READ: NBA: Miami Heat headed back to play-in for fourth consecutive season<\/h4>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">THE BRACKET IS SET \ud83c\udf7f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bqSnxeDnzv\">pic.twitter.com\/bqSnxeDnzv<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBA (@NBA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBA\/status\/2043526145396592760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 13, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u2014 East No. 7 Philadelphia plays host to East No. 8 Orlando on Wednesday (7:30 p.m. Eastern), with the winner of that game set to fulfill the Boston Celtics in Round 1.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The Los Angeles Clippers, No. 9 within the West, play host to No. 10 Golden State on Wednesday (10 p.m. Eastern) in an elimination game. The winner will play the Suns-Trail Blazers loser on Friday for the appropriate to fulfill No. 1 Oklahoma City in Round 1.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ztoop\">\n<i id=\"art_cont\" style=\"color:#85A7BF;\">Article continues after this commercial<\/i>\t\t  <\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u2014 Also Friday, the Hornets-Heat winner will visit the 76ers-Magic loser to determine which team advances to face No. 1 Detroit in Round 1.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur group understands what wins and loses for us,\u201d Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s crucial thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Remainder of Round 1 schedule<\/h2>\n<p>The highest two seeds in each conference \u2014 Detroit, Boston, Oklahoma City and San Antonio \u2014 will wait until either Tuesday or Friday to seek out out their Round 1 opponents.<\/p>\n<div id=\"billboard_article\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<i id=\"art_cont\" style=\"color:#85A7BF;\">Article continues after this commercial<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n<p>Some teams already know. The three-vs.-6 and 4-vs.-5 Round 1 matchups are set.<\/p>\n<h4>READ: NBA: LeBron James scores 28, Lakers clinch homecourt in 1st round<\/h4>\n<p>Within the East, No. 3 Recent York will play No. 6 Atlanta, and No. 4 Cleveland takes on No. 5 Toronto. Within the West, No. 3 Denver will play No. 6 Minnesota \u2014 the third time in 4 years those teams have met within the postseason \u2014 while the fourth-seeded Los Angeles Lakers will face No. 5 Houston.<\/p>\n<h2>How the regular-season finale went down<\/h2>\n<p>Contained in the Heat locker room on Sunday night, everybody\u2019s eyes were on an enormous television set showing the tip of the Orlando-Boston game.<\/p>\n<p>With good reason. It decided a complete lot within the East.<\/p>\n<p>The Celtics beat the Magic, which dropped Orlando into the No. 8 spot for the play-in. It also ensured the Miami-Charlotte game can be played Tuesday, since Philadelphia cannot host basketball games Monday or Tuesday due to arena scheduling conflicts with the NHL\u2019s Flyers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis one is completed,\u201d Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said after the loss in Boston. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be certain that you focus your time and your attention and your energy all on the Philadelphia 76ers immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Portland beat Sacramento to earn the No. 8 spot within the West going into the play-in, and due to this fact may have two possibilities to win one game and earn a playoff berth. The Clippers beat Golden State of their finale, and now those teams will play again in Inglewood, California, on Wednesday in an elimination game.<\/p>\n<h4>READ: NBA: Warriors\u2019 Steph Curry will take part in play-in if able, says Kerr<\/h4>\n<p>\u201cEach team knows the opposite pretty much, just from playing against them rather a lot through the years,\u201d Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.<\/p>\n<p>Denver \u2014 which ended the regular season on a 12-game winning streak \u2014 topped San Antonio to lock up the No. 3 seed. The Lakers beat Utah, and that result means LeBron James might be taking over Kevin Durant of their first postseason meeting because the 2018 NBA Finals.<\/p>\n<h2>Points record falls<\/h2>\n<p>More points were scored this season than in every other in NBA history, with the previous record of 282,127 points getting passed Sunday evening \u2014 with about seven games left to be played on the schedule.<\/p>\n<p>The ultimate total for the season: 284,395 points.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t a record for points per game; that mark of 118.8 points per team, per game, has stood since 1961-62. This season\u2019s pace of 115.6 points per team was sixth-best in NBA history.<\/p>\n<h2>Jokic plays, might be award eligible<\/h2>\n<p>Denver\u2019s Nikola Jokic appeared within the Nuggets\u2019 game against San Antonio on Sunday night, which pushed his total to 65 games for the season \u2014 and due to this fact got him eligibility on the NBA\u2019s award ballots that might be sent out later this week.<\/p>\n<p>Jokic was second in last 12 months\u2019s MVP balloting behind only Oklahoma City\u2019s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, That made Jokic just the third player in NBA history with a top-two finish in five or more consecutive seasons, joining Bill Russell and Larry Bird.<\/p>\n<p>Jokic won MVP in 2021, 2023 and 2024, plus was second in 2022 and again last 12 months.<\/p>\n<p>Russell and Bird, a pair of Boston Celtics greats, each were first or second within the balloting in six consecutive seasons.<\/p>\n<h2>Stat notes<\/h2>\n<p>The league\u2019s statistical champions have been known for a while, but now they\u2019re officially official.<\/p>\n<p>The Lakers\u2019 Luka Doncic (33.5 points per game) won the scoring title, while Jokic won each the rebounding (12.9 per game) and assist (10.7 per game) titles to finish one other season by which he averaged a triple-double.<\/p>\n<h4>Other stat items of note:<\/h4>\n<p>\u2014 The league finished with 96 games decided by 30 points or more, 16 greater than the previous record (set last season).<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The common margin of victory this season was 13.3 points, one other record (previous was 12.7, set last season).<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 This one is wild. Last season within the NBA, teams listed as favorites by BetMGM Sportsbook went 853-377. This season, they went \u2026 853-377.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) goes to the basket against the Los Angeles Clippers center Brook Lopez (11) through the second half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, April 12, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo\/Ethan Swope) MIAMI \u2014 The play-in tournament field is about, and identical to that the postseason has arrived [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":317956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[601,660,11123,2751,18578,1083],"class_list":["post-317955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-games","tag-nba","tag-playin","tag-playoffs","tag-seeding","tag-set"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317955"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317958,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317955\/revisions\/317958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}