{"id":698077,"date":"2026-04-04T16:54:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T16:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/698077\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T16:54:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T16:54:17","slug":"nba-playoff-scenarios-for-saturday-april-4-detroit-can-lock-up-the-no-1-seed-in-east-with-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/698077\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Playoff scenarios for Saturday, April 4: Detroit can lock up the No. 1 seed in East with win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Only three games on the schedule today as the NBA backs off to give the NCAA Final Four the spotlight. Still, among those three games, there are a couple of consequential ones. Here&#8217;s what you need to know.<\/p>\n<p>Playoff Scenarios<\/p>\n<p>Detroit can clinch the No. 1 seed in the East with a win at Philadelphia. The Pistons&#8217; magic number is one \u2014 either a Pistons win or a Celtics loss \u2014 so this is happening, the only question is whether it&#8217;s today or if Detroit has to wait a little. The Pistons are an impressive 8-2 without Cade Cunningham (collapsed lung) and have the rest advantage in this game as the 76ers spent a lot of energy beating Minnesota on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Games to WatchSan Antonio Spurs at Denver Nuggets (3 p.m. ET, Prime Video)<\/p>\n<p>This is a game that is both important for West seeding, and it is a potential second-round preview (with <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/nba\/news\/luka-doncic-diagnosed-with-grade-2-hamstring-strain-out-for-remainder-of-season-at-least\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Luka Doncic out for the remainder of the regular season;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;Luka Doncic out for the remainder of the regular season&quot;}\">Luka Doncic out for the remainder of the regular season<\/a>, it&#8217;s very possible the Nuggets make up the one game they are behind the Lakers and take over the No. 3 seed for the playoffs). San Antonio has been the hottest team in the NBA, going 21-2 with a +14.5 net rating since the All-Star break, but they haven&#8217;t made up ground on Oklahoma City, which holds the No. 1 seed and is 19-2 in that same stretch. Spurs players are pretty open about wanting the No. 1 seed (and they have the tiebreaker with the Thunder), but they need all the wins they can get to have a chance, because OKC is not coming back to the pack.<\/p>\n<p>Denver has the toughest remaining schedule in the NBA, and if it is going to catch Los Angeles for the No. 3 seed in the West it needs some tough wins \u2014 and not to lose ground. This game matters to them.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Detroit Pistons at Philadelphia 76ers (7 p.m. ET, League Pass)<\/p>\n<p>As noted above, the Pistons can clinch the No. 1 seed in the East with a win. Philadelphia needs all the wins it can get to stay out of the play-in. The 76ers are tied with the Raptors for the 6\/7 seeds in the East. Philadelphia also is 1.5 games back of Atlanta for the No. 5 seed but just 1.5 games ahead of Charlotte \u2014 in a tight East, Philly needs all the wins it can get.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Only three games on the schedule today as the NBA backs off to give the NCAA Final Four&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[679,676,7,909,46,187,296,251,368,307,6,11,378,475,678,297,681,969,474,2548,2152],"class_list":{"0":"post-698077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-atlanta","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-cade-cunningham","12":"tag-celtics","13":"tag-denver-nuggets","14":"tag-detroit","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-luka-doncic","17":"tag-minnesota","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-nba-playoffs","20":"tag-okc","21":"tag-oklahoma-city","22":"tag-philadelphia","23":"tag-pistons","24":"tag-raptors","25":"tag-san-antonio","26":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","27":"tag-seed","28":"tag-the-lakers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116347487323991797","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698077","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=698077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}