The NBA regular season ended Sunday, and now it’s time for the postseason. If you aren’t familiar with the NBA postseason, I’ll discuss how it works before jumping into how the playoffs have gone so far. The NBA playoffs setup is more similar to the MLB playoffs than the NFL playoffs. The NBA has 30 teams. The teams are split into two conferences, the Eastern and Western conference, and there are 15 teams in each. For the playoffs, the top 6 teams in each conference are in the playoffs. The teams that are ranked 7-10 are in the play-in tournament. The play-in tournament is where these teams have to play a game before they are in the playoffs. Teams 7 and 8 play each other. The winner goes onto the playoffs, and the loser must go against the winner of the team that wins the game where 9 and 10 play. The loser of game 9 and 10 does not advance. Once you are in the playoffs, it’s the best of 7 games. Whoever wins goes onto the next round.

On Tuesday, the Atlanta Hawks and Los Angeles Lakers won, and clinched their spot in the playoffs. That means that the Miami Heat and the Minnesota Timberwolves will have to play another game before they know if they are in the playoffs or not. On Wednesday, The Chicago Bulls and the Oklahoma City Thunder won which means the last play-in games that will be played tonight will be Heat vs. Bulls and Timberwolves vs. Thunder. The Thunder and Bulls beat out the New Orleans Pelicans and the Toronto Raptors, so the Pelicans and the Raptors are out of the playoffs. Whoever wins the games tonight will move onto the playoffs, and losers will go home.

The regular playoff games will start Saturday with 4 game 1 of 7 series. There will be 4 games played on Saturday. Number 6 Brooklyn Nets at the number 3 Philadelphia 76er’s. The number 7 Hawks at the number 2 Boston Celtics. Number 5 New York Knicks at the number 4 Cleveland Cavilers. To finish off Saturday’s games, the number 6 Golden State Warriors at the number 3 Sacramento Kings.

Sunday will feature the rest of the game 1’s kicking off with the number 7 Lakers at number 2 Memphis Grizzlies. Number 8 will be the winner of the Heat and Bulls game, and they will be at number 1 Milwaukee Bucks. The number 5 Los Angeles Clippers will be at number 4 Phoenix Suns. Finishing the game 1’s will be the number 8 winner of the Timberwolves/Thunder game at number 1 Denver Nuggets.

This year, there are many interesting matchups to catch. If you want to catch any of these games, you have many chances to watch one. These games go on until one team wins 4 games.

Sources:

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/2023-nba-playoffs-schedule-scores-bracket-first-round-dates-bulls-heat-thunder-wolves-battle-for-8-seeds/

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/36069090/nba-playoff-schedule-highlights-2023

https://www.nba.com/playoffs/2023