The Bulls want to keep Billy Donovan<\/a><\/p>\nWho’s in and who’s out?<\/p>\n
Here’s what we know so far regarding the NBA playoff field for this season.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Eastern Conference playoff teams: Detroit has locked up the No. 1 seed and will open the postseason on April 19. Boston, New York, Cleveland are in. At this point, Atlanta and Toronto would get the other two guaranteed spots, but those are not clinched.<\/p>\n
\u2014 East play-in teams: Miami is locked into the play-in for the fourth consecutive year. Entering Thursday, the other three teams headed there would be Philadelphia, Orlando and Charlotte.<\/p>\n
\u2014 East eliminated teams: Milwaukee, Chicago, Indiana, Brooklyn and Washington.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Western Conference playoff teams: Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Denver, the Los Angeles Lakers, Houston and Minnesota are in. Denver, the Lakers and Houston are still jostling to see who’ll be the No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 seeds.<\/p>\n
\u2014 West play-in teams: Phoenix, the Los Angeles Clippers, Portland and Golden State are in. The Suns will be the No. 7 seed, the Clippers and Trail Blazers are battling for No. 8, and the Warriors will be the No. 10 seed.<\/p>\n
\u2014 West eliminated teams: Memphis, New Orleans, Dallas, Utah and Sacramento.<\/p>\n
Wednesday recap<\/p>\n
\u2014 Cavaliers 122, Hawks 116: If Cavs-Hawks will be a first-round series, some fun awaits.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Magic 132, Timberwolves 120: Orlando surges back into the East No. 7 spot, for now.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Pistons 137, Bucks 111: Cade Cunningham, back from collapsed lung, played 26 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Nuggets 136, Grizzlies 119: Denver has won 10 straight for 1st time in Nikola Jokic\u2019s career.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Spurs 112, Trail Blazers 101: San Antonio had a game-defining 48-10 edge in bench scoring.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Thunder 128, Clippers 110: Clippers played well \u2014 and still trailed by as many as 25 points.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Suns 112, Mavericks 107: 37 for Devin Booker, 28 for Dillon Brooks and Suns dug deep late.<\/p>\n
Thursday’s schedule<\/p>\n
\u2014 Miami at Toronto: Raptors looking to sweep teams’ four-game season series.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Chicago at Washington: Bulls led the Wizards by as many as 37 on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Indiana at Brooklyn: Pacers’ Rick Carlisle (family reasons) out next two games.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Boston at New York: Jayson Tatum returns to MSG, where he got hurt last spring.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Philadelphia at Houston: Rockets charging toward home-court edge for Round 1.<\/p>\n
\u2014 LA Lakers at Golden State: Injuries crushing Lakers, who have lost three straight.<\/p>\n
Friday’s schedule<\/p>\n
\u2014 Detroit at Charlotte: Game might mean a lot to Hornets\u2019 play-in seed.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Miami at Washington: Another chance to reflect on Bam Adebayo\u2019s 83-point game.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Cleveland at Atlanta: The teams could wind up meeting nine times in like 3-1\/2 weeks.<\/p>\n
\u2014 New Orleans at Boston: Celtics won\u2019t be on road again until Game 3 of Round 1.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Philadelphia at Indiana: 76ers still trying to get out of the play-in tournament.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Toronto at New York: Major implications likely for Raptors.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Orlando at Chicago: Magic could still get out of the play-in.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Brooklyn at Milwaukee: Giannis Antetokounmpo\u2019s home finale with Bucks? (And will he play?)<\/p>\n
\u2014 Dallas at San Antonio: Victor Wembanyama needs one more game to qualify for award ballots.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Oklahoma City at Denver: Lots of meaning for Nuggets, not for Thunder, so advantage, Denver.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Minnesota at Houston: Rockets could get home-court in Round 1, playing best ball of season.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Memphis at Utah: The Jazz have worked hard to keep their top-eight protected draft pick.<\/p>\n
\u2014 LA Clippers at Portland: Could this be a playoff to decide the No. 8 seed for the play-in?<\/p>\n
\u2014 Golden State at Sacramento: Warriors keep building toward road play-in challenge that awaits.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Phoenix at LA Lakers: Lakers just need to get healthy, Suns know they\u2019ll host play-in games.<\/p>\n
National TV schedule<\/p>\n
Thursday on Prime Video: Boston-New York (7:30 p.m. Eastern) and LA Lakers-Golden State (10 p.m.)<\/p>\n
Friday on Prime Video: Cleveland-Atlanta (7 p.m. Eastern) and Minnesota-Houston (9:30 p.m.)<\/p>\n
Sunday on ESPN: Orlando-Boston (6 p.m. Eastern) and Denver-San Antonio (8:30 p.m.)<\/p>\n
Betting odds<\/p>\n
Oklahoma City (+130) is favored to win the NBA title, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, followed by San Antonio (+450), Boston (+550), Denver (+1000), Cleveland (+1300) and New York (+2000). Detroit, the No. 1 seed in the East, is +2200. The Los Angeles Lakers were +2500 before Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves got hurt; they’re +30000 now.<\/p>\n
Play-in schedule<\/p>\n
Some of the NBA’s play-in tournament schedule is now known:<\/p>\n
\u2014 Phoenix will play host to either the LA Clippers or Portland on Tuesday at 10 p.m. Eastern. (The winner of that game will play No. 2 San Antonio in Round 1, the loser will play a home game on Friday for the right to play No. 1 Oklahoma City in Round 1).<\/p>\n
\u2014 Golden State will visit either the LA Clippers or Portland on Wednesday at 10 p.m. Eastern. (The loser of that game is eliminated, the winner moves on to Friday.)<\/p>\n
All games in the play-in tournament will be shown on Prime Video.<\/p>\n
Key dates<\/p>\n
\u2014 Friday: All 30 teams play their 81st games of the season.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Saturday: No games.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Sunday: 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
\u2014 Denver’s Nikola Jokic is going to lead the NBA in both assists per game and rebounds per game this season. He’ll be the first person to win both an assist-per-game and rebound-per-game title; Wilt Chamberlain led the league in both total assists and total rebounds in 1967-68, but Oscar Robertson won the assist-per-game title that season.<\/p>\n
\u2014 The NBA remains on pace to see more points this season than ever before. The current pace is about 284,300; the record total for a season is 282,137, set in 2022-23.<\/p>\n
Stats of the day<\/p>\n
\u2014 Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t make a free throw for the first time all season in the Thunder win over the LA Clippers on Thursday night. He was 0 for 1.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Denver has scored at least 136 points in three consecutive games. Only three other teams (Phoenix in February 2009, Dallas in November 2019 and Atlanta in November 2023) have done that in the last 25 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Home-court advantage mattered big-time to Oklahoma City last season, when the Thunder won a Game 7 at home…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,6,11,67,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-706647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-nba-playoffs","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116375244230391238","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706647","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=706647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}