![\"Cleveland](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775089780_656_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nAnother night, another record for LeBron James. This one: wins.<\/p>\n
The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Cleveland Cavaliers \u2014 one of James’ former teams \u2014 127-113 on Tuesday night. Adding in both regular-season and playoff games, James has now played in 1,229 wins over his record-setting 23-year career.<\/p>\n
That’s one more than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career total.<\/p>\n
Abdul-Jabbar still has the regular-season wins record. He played in 1,074 of those; James is 29 wins from tying that number. James has the playoff record with 184 wins, or 23 more than Derek Fisher.<\/p>\n
Lakers, Nuggets clinch<\/p>\n
The Lakers and Denver both clinched playoff spots on Tuesday night. They join Detroit, Boston, New York, Oklahoma City and San Antonio on the list of teams with playoff spots secured.<\/p>\n
The postseason (not playoff) teams are set: Milwaukee, Chicago, Washington, Brooklyn and Indiana have all been eliminated from the Eastern Conference race while Memphis, New Orleans, Dallas, Utah and Sacramento are out of the Western Conference race.<\/p>\n
Portland, Golden State and the Los Angeles Clippers are locked into the play-in tournament.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cleveland Cavaliers guard Dennis Schroder, left, passes the ball as Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James defends during the first half of an NBA basketball game Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Los Angeles. Credit: AP\/Mark J. Terrill<\/p>\n
Tuesday recap<\/p>\n
\u2014 Magic 115, Suns 111: A much-needed win for Orlando after the 52-point loss in Toronto.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Hornets 117, Nets 86: Only the third game without a 3 for Kon Knueppel this season.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Bucks 123, Mavericks 99: A lot of missed shots in this one; teams combined for 109 rebounds.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Pistons 127, Raptors 116: Jalen Duren (12-13 FG, 7-7 FT) almost perfect, Detroit rolls toward No. 1 seed.<\/p>\n
![\"Portland](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775089781_335_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Portland Trail Blazers center Donovan Clingan (23), LA Clippers forward John Collins (20) and LA Clippers center Brook Lopez (11) fight for possession of the ball during the second half of an NBA basketball game Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif. Credit: AP\/Caroline Brehman<\/p>\n
\u2014 Rockets 111, Knicks 94: Important win for Rockets, who still have a chance at No. 4 seed.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Lakers 127, Cavaliers 113: Wasn\u2019t as close as the score looks, Luka Doncic scored 42 in 34 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Trail Blazers 114, Clippers 104: Deni Avdija (28-11-8) nearly gets triple-double, Portland inches toward No. 8.<\/p>\n
Wednesday’s games<\/p>\n
\u2014 Philadelphia at Washington: 76ers still trying to escape play-in.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Atlanta at Orlando: The Hawks have eyes on the No. 5 seed.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Boston at Miami: Celtics can move closer to clinching No. 2 seed …<\/p>\n
\u2014 New York at Memphis: … especially if the Knicks falter again here.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Sacramento at Toronto: DeMar DeRozan rightfully remains a Raptors favorite.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Indiana at Chicago: A pair of lottery-bound teams.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Milwaukee at Houston: Rockets could move to brink of securing top-6 seed.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Denver at Utah: Nuggets seeking seventh consecutive win.<\/p>\n
\u2014 San Antonio at Golden State: Warriors have scored 8,617 points this season \u2014 and given up 8,619.<\/p>\n
Thursday’s games<\/p>\n
\u2014 Phoenix at Charlotte: Devin Booker had 30 points, 10 assists in Phoenix win over Charlotte last month.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Minnesota at Detroit: Detroit just keeps rolling, even with Cade Cunningham sidelined.<\/p>\n
\u2014 L.A. Lakers at Oklahoma City: Matchup of MVP contenders in Doncic, Thunder\u2019s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Cleveland at Golden State: Warriors know they\u2019re in West play-in, while Cavs are on brink of clinching East top-4 seed.<\/p>\n
\u2014 New Orleans at Portland: Pelicans building toward next season, Blazers could host a play-in game.<\/p>\n
\u2014 San Antonio at L.A. Clippers: Spurs still chasing that No. 1 seed, Clippers know they\u2019ll be in play-in.<\/p>\n
National TV schedule<\/p>\n
Wednesday’s games on ESPN: Boston-Miami and San Antonio-Golden State.<\/p>\n
Thursday’s games on Prime: Minnesota-Detroit and L.A. Lakers-Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n
Betting odds<\/p>\n
Oklahoma City (+145) is favored to win the NBA title, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, followed by San Antonio (+450), Boston (+700), Cleveland (+1000), Denver (+1100) and New York (+1600). Detroit, on its way to the No. 1 seed in the East, is +2500.<\/p>\n
Key dates<\/p>\n
\u2014 April 10: All 30 teams play their 81st games of the season.<\/p>\n
\u2014 April 12: All 30 teams play their regular season finales.<\/p>\n
\u2014 April 14, 15 and 17: NBA play-in tournament dates.<\/p>\n
\u2014 April 18 and 19: NBA playoff series openers.<\/p>\n
\u2014 May 2, 3 or 4: Conference semifinals begin.<\/p>\n
\u2014 May 10: NBA draft lottery.<\/p>\n
\u2014 May 10-17: NBA draft combine.<\/p>\n
\u2014 May 17 or 19: Eastern Conference finals begin on ESPN and ABC.<\/p>\n
\u2014 May 18 or 20: Western Conference finals begin on NBC and Peacock.<\/p>\n
\u2014 June 3: Game 1, NBA Finals on ABC. (Other finals dates: June 5, June 8, June 10, June 13, June 16 and June 19).<\/p>\n
Numbers watch<\/p>\n
Sacramento’s DeMar DeRozan is eight points shy of tying Dominique Wilkins (26,668) for 17th on the NBA’s all-time scoring list \u2014 and returns to Toronto on Wednesday night with eyes on getting to that spot. Other than the active players ahead of him on the scoring list (James, Kevin Durant, James Harden and Russell Westbrook), everyone else with DeRozan\u2019s point total is in the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
Stat of the day<\/p>\n
The 30,000th 3-pointer of the season was made Tuesday night. It’s the fifth consecutive year that the NBA has reached 30,000 3s \u2014 but it doesn’t seem likely that the full-season record of 33,304 set last season will be reached. The current pace for this season: 32,638.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another night, another record for LeBron James. This one: wins. The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Cleveland Cavaliers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,193,135,150,6,11,2148],"class_list":{"0":"post-692924","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","10":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","11":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nba-playoffs","14":"tag-wires-bot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116332290345915131","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692924","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=692924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}