By TIM REYNOLDS<\/p>\n
ASSOCIATED PRESS<\/p>\n
The final day of the NBA regular season arrives Sunday, with much left to decide. There are 30 teams, all of which will play Game 82 on the final day, and all those clubs fall into one of three 10-team groups right now.<\/p>\n
Fans of the Warriors, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Houston, Minnesota, Phoenix, Detroit, Boston, New York and Cleveland, go ahead and relax \u2014 your team\u2019s seed is all set.<\/p>\n
Fans of Denver, the Los Angeles Lakers, Portland, the Los Angeles Clippers, Atlanta, Toronto, Orlando, Philadelphia, Charlotte and Miami, prepare yourselves \u2014 your team still has things to play for.<\/p>\n
Fans of Milwaukee, Chicago, Brooklyn, Indiana, Washington, New Orleans, Memphis, Dallas, Sacramento and Utah \u2014 enjoy the season finales.<\/p>\n
Who\u2019s in, who\u2019s out<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what we know so far regarding the NBA playoff field for this season.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Eastern Conference No. 1: Detroit.<\/p>\n
\u2014 East No. 2: Boston.<\/p>\n
\u2014 East No. 3: New York.<\/p>\n
\u2014 East No. 4: Cleveland.<\/p>\n
\u2014 East No. 5 and No. 6: Atlanta will have one of these spots. Toronto is the only other team that can reach the No. 5 seed, but it could also finish No. 6, No. 7 or No. 8 as well. There are some scenarios where Orlando and Philadelphia can sneak into the No. 6 spot. The Magic need a win over Boston, plus wins by Brooklyn (over Toronto) and Milwaukee (over Philadelphia) to reach No. 6. The 76ers need a win, plus an Orlando loss and a Brooklyn win to reach No. 6.<\/p>\n
\u2014 East play-in: Toronto, Orlando and Philadelphia are the three teams that could finish in the No. 7 and No. 8 spots. Nos. 9 and 10 will be Charlotte and Miami, in some order. A Heat win over Atlanta and a Hornets loss to New York means Miami will be No. 9. Otherwise, Charlotte will be the 9 seed.<\/p>\n
\u2014 East eliminated teams: Milwaukee, Chicago, Indiana, Brooklyn and Washington.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Western Conference No. 1: Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n
\u2014 West No. 2: San Antonio.<\/p>\n
\u2014 West No. 3 and No. 4: Denver and Los Angeles Lakers. Denver gets No. 3 with a win over San Antonio or a Lakers loss to Utah. If neither of those things happen, the Lakers get the No. 3 seed.<\/p>\n
\u2014 West No. 5: Houston.<\/p>\n
\u2014 West No. 6: Minnesota.<\/p>\n
\u2014 West play-in: Phoenix is No. 7, Portland and the Los Angeles Clippers will be No. 8 and No. 9 in some order (the Trail Blazers control destinies there), and the Warriors are No. 10.<\/p>\n
\u2014 West eliminated teams: Memphis, New Orleans, Dallas, Utah and Sacramento.<\/p>\n
Games of note<\/p>\n
The games with seeding implications on Sunday:<\/p>\n
\u2014 Orlando at Boston: Magic can escape play-in with a win, would be in 7-vs.-8 game with a loss.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Atlanta at Miami: Hawks would be No. 5 seed with a win, Miami could get to No. 9 with a win.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Charlotte at New York: Hornets would be No. 9 seed and host Miami in play-in with a victory.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Milwaukee at Philadelphia: 76ers would be No. 8 seed with a loss, will be No. 6, 7 or 8 with win.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Brooklyn at Toronto: Raptors go to playoffs as No. 5 or 6 seed with win, could fall to 8 with loss.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Denver at San Antonio: Nuggets would be 3 seed with win, probably would fall to 4 with a loss.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Utah at LA Lakers: Lakers probably would be 3 seed with win, would fall to 4 with a loss.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Warriors at LA Clippers: This might be a preview of a Warriors-Clippers play-in 9-10 game.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Sacramento at Portland: Trail Blazers would hold off Clippers for the No. 8 seed with a win.<\/p>\n
And the games with no relevance on the standings: Washington at Cleveland, Detroit at Indiana, Chicago at Dallas, Memphis at Houston, New Orleans at Minnesota, Phoenix at Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n
Friday recap<\/p>\n
A look at some of what happened in Friday\u2019s slate of games:<\/p>\n
\u2014 Boston made 29 3-pointers, tying the NBA single-game record. It had happened on three other occasions; Milwaukee did it in 2020, Boston did it in 2022 and Memphis did it on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Phoenix scored 73 points in a loss to the Lakers. It was the second-lowest point total of the season; Brooklyn had 66 in a 54-point loss to New York in January.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Severely undermanned Utah had two players \u2014 John Konchar and Bez Mbeng \u2014 record triple-doubles off the bench in a win over even more severely undermanned Memphis. No team ever had two nonstarters with triple-doubles in the same game before Friday.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Memphis used six players in that 147-101 loss. Among them: Jahmai Mashack, who had a triple-double himself \u2014 13 points, 15 rebounds, 14 assists. He also had 10 turnovers, the first player to have such an unusual triple-double (let\u2019s not call it a quadruple-double) since Giannis Antetokounmpo in 2023.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Miami\u2019s Bam Adebayo \u2014 he of the 83-point game \u2014 finished the season with 139 points against Washington. That\u2019s the most the Wizards have given up to anyone in a season since LeBron James had 142 against them in 2017-18.<\/p>\n
\u2014 There were 181 players with at least one made 3-pointer Friday, tying the fourth-most on a single day in NBA history. (The record is 189, set April 11, 2025.)<\/p>\n
National TV schedule<\/p>\n
Sunday on ESPN: Orlando-Boston (3 p.m. Pacific) and Denver-San Antonio (5:30 p.m.). The Warriors play the Clipeprs at 5:30 p.m. on NBC Sports Bay Area.<\/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 +2000. The Los Angeles Lakers were +2500 before Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves got hurt; they\u2019re +20000 now.<\/p>\n
Play-in schedule<\/p>\n
Some of the NBA\u2019s play-in tournament schedule is now known:<\/p>\n
\u2014 Phoenix will play host to either the LA Clippers or Portland on Tuesday at 7 p.m. Pacific. (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 The Warriors will visit either the LA Clippers or Portland on Wednesday at 7 p.m. (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 Sunday: All 30 teams play their regular-season finales.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday: 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 The average margin of victory in the NBA this season is 13.2 points, the biggest in league history (and is certain to finish as a record). The previous mark was 12.7 points, set last season. This is the fourth time in the last five years that the point-differential-in-wins record will fall.<\/p>\n
\u2014 The Raptors are 26-0 vs. the Hawks, Heat, Pacers, Bulls, Cavs, Jazz, Blazers, Warriors and Grizzlies this season. They\u2019re 0-21 vs. the Celtics, Rockets, Nuggets, Clippers, Lakers, Spurs, Wolves and Knicks. They lost at New York on Friday, falling to 0-5 in that series this season.<\/p>\n
\u2014 The NBA remains on pace to see more points this season than ever before. The current pace is about 284,258, which would be reached on Sunday; the record total for a season is 282,137, set in 2022-23.<\/p>\n
Stats of the day<\/p>\n
\u2014 There are 18 players with a chance to play in all 82 of their team\u2019s regular-season games this season. That would be the most in the 82-game club since 19 players did it in the 2018-19 season.<\/p>\n
\u2014 In an annual tradition, New York\u2019s Mikal Bridges is in line to play all 82 \u2014 again. He has appeared in all 637 possible regular-season games of his career, 57 more in the playoffs and all 116 of Villanova\u2019s games when he was in college (with the exception of his redshirt season). His last game missed, outside of the redshirt year, was one game because of illness in his junior year of high school.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Denver has a chance to become the fourth team to finish a regular season with a winning streak of 12 games or better. Philadelphia won its last 16 in 2017-18, Rochester won its final 15 games of the 1949-50 season (then lost a tiebreaker) and Milwaukee won its last 14 games in 1972-73.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By TIM REYNOLDS ASSOCIATED PRESS The final day of the NBA regular season arrives Sunday, with much left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,66,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-708418","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-oklahoma","11":"tag-oklahoma-city","12":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","13":"tag-oklahomacity","14":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116387925440010259","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708418","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=708418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}