{"id":680458,"date":"2026-03-26T17:10:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T17:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/680458\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T17:10:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T17:10:20","slug":"2026-nba-playoffs-clinching-scenarios-and-standings-on-march-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/680458\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 NBA Playoffs: Clinching scenarios and standings on March 26"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With less than three weeks left to play in the 2025-26 regular season, teams are in the midst of heated battles in the standings ahead of the start of the NBA playoffs on April 18.<\/p>\n<p>The top six teams in each conference will earn an outright playoff berth at the conclusion of the regular season. The next four teams will compete in the play-in tournament on April 14-17 for the last two seeds in each conference, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>With 8-10 games remaining on the schedule, 22 teams remain in contention to qualify for the postseason, via either a playoff berth or a spot in the play-in tournament. The action is set to heat up as teams battle for playoff positioning down the stretch.<\/p>\n<p>Thursday night features three games on the schedule, with some playoff teams taking the court and an Eastern Conference clinching scenario to monitor.<\/p>\n<p>What are the matchups on Thursday?Updated StandingsWhich teams have clinched a playoff berth?<\/p>\n<p>Western Conference:<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Oklahoma City Thunder (57-16)<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">San Antonio Spurs (55-18)<\/p>\n<p>Eastern Conference:<\/p>\n<p>Which teams have been eliminated from postseason contention?<\/p>\n<p>Western Conference:<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">New Orleans Pelicans (25-48)<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Memphis Grizzlies (24-48)<\/p>\n<p>Eastern Conference:<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Washington Wizards (17-55)<\/p>\n<p>Eastern Conference Scenarios for Thursday<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The Knicks can clinch a playoff berth with a win<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Rookie Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/therookiewire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/rookie\/2026\/03\/26\/2026-nba-playoffs-clinching-scenarios-standings-march-26\/89331107007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:2026 NBA Playoffs: Clinching scenarios and standings on March 26;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;2026 NBA Playoffs&quot;}\" class=\"link \">2026 NBA Playoffs: Clinching scenarios and standings on March 26<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With less than three weeks left to play in the 2025-26 regular season, teams are in the midst&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,247,149,188,1409,126,304,177,6,2549,11,2550,470,179,2551,30248,477,474,427,468],"class_list":["post-680458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-playoffs","tag-basketball","tag-brooklyn-nets","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-eastern-conference","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-knicks","tag-memphis-grizzlies","tag-nba","tag-nba-league-pass","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-nba-standings","tag-new-orleans-pelicans","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-playoff-berth","tag-playoff-teams","tag-sacramento-kings","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-utah-jazz","tag-washington-wizards"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116296589280875162","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}