As regular season ends, new tourney takes shape
Bring on the play-in, with the NBA’s regular season complete and the defending champion Lakers still not officially in the postseason.
The NBA’s new play-in tournament begins Tuesday night, and it took until the 146th and final day of this compressed season to determine who is going where for the playoffs.
The Western Conference matchups: the seventh-seeded Lakers and LeBron James hosting No. 8 Golden State and Stephen Curry, along with No. 9 Memphis playing host to No. 10 San Antonio. Those two games are Wednesday.
And the Eastern Conference: No. 7 Boston will host No. 8 Washington, and No. 9 Indiana host No. 10 Charlotte in the NBA’s first elimination game this season. Both of those games are Tuesday.
“We’ve given ourselves a chance to play games that matter,” Curry said after the Warriors beat Memphis to clinch the eighth seed for the play-in.
James has been one of the critics of the playin round, saying recently that the person who came up with the idea “should be fired.”
And now, the play-in awaits him.
The Boston-Washington winner goes straight to the playoffs as the East’s No. 7 seed and will play No. 2 Brooklyn; the loser of that game will host the Indiana-Charlotte winner on Thursday to determine the East’s No. 8 seed and who will face top-seeded Philadelphia in Round 1.
Same deal out West: The Lakers-Warriors winner is the No. 7 seed and will play Phoenix; the loser there will play host to the Memphis-San Antonio winner for the right to play the top-seeded Utah Jazz, who will have homecourt advantage throughout the entirety of the NBA playoffs.
The West first-round matchups that are set have third-seeded Denver against sixth-seeded Portland, and the fourthseeded Clippers meeting fifth-seeded Dallas in a rematch of an opening series from last season.
Getting to the No. 8 spot for the play-in round in the East is a massive comeback story for the Wizards, who started the season 0-5 and 3-12, were shut down for two weeks in January for coronavirus-related issues, had to play 38 games in the season’s final 67 days to make up for all that lost time and were 17-32 early last month.
They’re 17-6 since, rallying from 16 points down to beat Charlotte on Sunday and with Russell Westbrook — the league’s alltime triple-double king — getting his 38th one of the season.
“Obviously, Washington’s rolling,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said. “They’re a heck of a basketball team. ... They’re a handful. Tuesday night’s going to be one heck of a challenge.”
Meanwhile, New York — which was sent home after the regular season in each of the last seven years — not only is back in the playoffs but will open them at home. New York’s win over Boston locked the Knicks into the East’s No. 4 seed and a first-round matchup against No. 5 Atlanta.
That means reigning East champion Miami will open as the No. 6 seed. The Heat will open the playoffs at Milwaukee, the No. 3 seed, in a rematch of last year’s East semifinals. That was sealed when Brooklyn beat Cleveland on Sunday night, giving the Nets the No. 2 seed in the East and a matchup with the Boston-Washington winner in Round 1.