{"id":712822,"date":"2026-04-18T00:40:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T00:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/712822\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T00:40:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T00:40:29","slug":"nba-play-in-tournament-live-updates-magic-take-early-lead-over-hornets-in-battle-for-last-spot-in-the-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/712822\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Play-In Tournament Live Updates: Magic Take Early Lead Over Hornets in Battle for Last Spot in the East"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7c\">Tomorrow, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/playoffs\/five-burning-questions-knicks-title-chances-lebron-james-leadership\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the NBA playoffs start in full<\/a>, with Game 1 of four different first-round series tipping off across the league. But while 14 teams in the league are prepping for the first round, there are four teams still battling to join them. On Friday night, they\u2019ll decide the final spots.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7f\">First, the Magic host the Hornets for the No. 8 seed in the West. For a nightcap, the Suns and Warriors will battle for the final spot in the West. We should be in for a great night of basketball, and we\u2019ll be following along with action all night. Come hang!<\/p>\n<p>More NBA from Sports Illustrated<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow si.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=si.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tomorrow, the NBA playoffs start in full, with Game 1 of four different first-round series tipping off across&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3777],"tags":[7,684,473,3878,685,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-712822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-charlotte-hornets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-charlotte","10":"tag-charlotte-hornets","11":"tag-charlottehornets","12":"tag-hornets","13":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116422930790252412","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712822","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=712822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}