Full NBA Play-In Tournament schedule, preview, and predictions
By Ben Handler
The Friday night games
The Play-In Tournament will conclude on Friday, April 19th with the Eastern Conference game on ESPN and the Western Conference game on TNT. The times and matchups are obviously still to be determined, but we know that the losers of the 7/8 games in each conference will host the winners of the 9/10 games, with the winners securing the 8 seeds in the East and West.
If my picks hold, that would mean that the Heat would host the Hawks in the East game and the Lakers would host the Warriors in the West game. Those would be two solid games, but the West matchup of former MVPs and champions would certainly be the marquee matchup of the evening.
The night will be oozing with storylines as we potentially could get an Eastern Conference Finals rematch of Heat/Celtics in round one, and in the West, we’ll either get LeBron and the Lakers or Steph and the Warriors eliminated before the playoffs even begin.
Regardless of outcomes, we are sure to get some amazing, high-stakes basketball games. By the end of Friday night, the play-in tournament will be complete and we’ll have our 16 playoff teams, our eight first-round matchups, and the entire NBA playoff bracket. What an exciting time. Nuggets fans, sit back and enjoy it and hope these teams beat the crap out of each other.