Sunday is the final day of the NBA regular season, and here’s a full listing of all the playoff and postseason matchups that have been decided.
— None.
There are 10 teams that are locked into specific seeds in the Eastern and Western Conferences, there are 10 other teams that know their seasons will end on Sunday and 10 more still have some level of uncertainty going into the final day of the six-month grind that precedes the NBA postseason.
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By the end of Sunday, four first-round series matchups — those starting next weekend — will be known, as will the first four play-in tournament matchups that will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“We’re just excited to be in this situation,” said Atlanta coach Quin Snyder, whose Hawks are playoff-bound — but don’t know if they’ll be the No. 5 or No. 6 seed in the East, so they obviously don’t know their first-round matchup either.
“Whoever we play is going to be really good,” Snyder said. “It’s hard to even try to figure that out. It’s possible that certain teams want to play us. … We don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s hard to predict all these games that are going on. Wherever it falls is how it falls.”
No team needs to win on Sunday to extend its season. There are 10 teams eliminated from postseason contention who all know Game 82 is the end of the road. But for the other 20 teams, there will be an 83rd game, either in the play-in this coming week or in the playoffs that start next weekend.
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That doesn’t mean those 20 teams all have nothing to play for Sunday. There are seeds to grab, and in some cases, a team could essentially manipulate how their side of the bracket sorts itself out. If San Antonio beats Denver, for example, the Spurs would assure themselves of not having to face Oklahoma City or the Nuggets until the Western Conference finals.
A Nuggets loss would mean LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers — provided they beat Utah on Sunday — would finish as the West’s No. 3 seed.
“I’m sure everybody wants to play us,” Lakers coach J.J. Redick said. “Let’s get that out there — everybody wants to play us….
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/final-day-nba-regular-season-172258859.html
Author : TIM REYNOLDS
Publish date : 2026-04-11 17:22:00
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