A sports blitz starts tonight, plus a WNBA Draft surprise

Good morning! I hope your TV is in working order. Coming up: 

📆 A busy stretch begins

1️⃣ Dallas’ surprise at No. 1

🏆 Rory’s family win

Up First: The NBA leads off a brilliant spring

One of the busiest stretches of important pro sporting events begins tonight, and I mean that in quite a positive way. The NBA playoffs tip off in a few hours, with two Play-In games. This weekend, the NHL playoffs will join. Both sports will crown winners by the third week of June … which is when the World Cup will be fully underway. Oh, and the WNBA season starts in three weeks. More on that in a second. 

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It’s both dizzying and exciting. Let’s attack the mountain of important sports with what’s happening first: the NBA. 

The Play-In Tournament starts tonight, and it’s interesting to have such a new-feeling concept settle into the calendar (format refresher here). This year’s group is arguably the best since the Play-In’s inception in 2020-21. Just one team with a losing record — the Warriors — is playing, which is the fewest in the Play-In’s short history. Is that a good thing? If you look at the standings, you’ll notice that basically every other team tanked. Hm.

Anyway, I asked Bounce writer Zach Harper if any Play-In team could possibly make a Heat-like run (the No. 8 seed in 2022-23 that lost in the finals): 

💬 “If anybody is going to do it, it’s going to be the team that ends up in the No. 8 seed in the East. That’s wildly disrespectful to the Pistons. The second-round opponent of either Toronto or Cleveland is what actually makes this feel possible. I could see a healthy Sixers team or this plucky Hornets team do it. Definitely not the Magic.”

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Give me the Hornets of that crew, and I will direct all Detroit angst to Zach’s inbox.

The actual first-round matchups are great, too. Overall, there’s a real Thunder-versus-the-field vibe, but I discount that. There are too many big names and great teams throughout each conference. Examples: 

Outside of the defending champs, eight teams won 50 or more games. LeBron James’ Lakers (West No. 4) play Kevin…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/sports-blitz-starts-tonight-plus-101607148.html

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Publish date : 2026-04-14 10:16:00

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