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2024 NBA Playoffs: Bracket, standings, playoff picture after regular season finale – USA TODAY
The NBA’s regular season is over. The play-in tournament has begun this week. Only the No. 8 playoff seeds remain to be set.
The Boston Celtics clinched the best record in the NBA weeks ago and are the only team to finish the season with more than 60 wins. The New York Knicks snatched the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference with a win and Milwaukee Bucks loss in each team’s season finale on Sunday.
In the West, three teams finished within one game of each other for the top seed and home-court advantage until the NBA Finals. In the end, it was the Oklahoma City Thunder who came out on top, having won the season series against the Denver Nuggets, 3-1, to earn the tiebreaker. The Minnesota Timberwolves’ loss on Sunday kept them out of a three-way tie atop the Western Conference standings.
Here are the NBA standings at the end of the regular season and what this year’s playoff bracket will look like.
NBA Playoffs:Tiebreaker, seed scenarios headed into final day of regular season
The top 6 teams in each conference automatically make the playoffs. Teams in positions 7-10 qualify for the play-in tournament.
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Here’s how the first round of the playoffs would shake out in the East if the season ended after Sunday.
Here’s how the matchups look with the current standings in the Western Conference.
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The NBA Play-In Tournament, with its current system implemented for the 2021 playoffs, allowed each conference to expand its potential playoff field from eight teams to 10. The seventh- through 10th-ranked teams in each conference at the end of the regular season play in a four-day tournament to decide the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds in the first round of the playoffs.
In one set of games, the seventh-place team for each conference hosts the eighth-place finisher. The winners in each conference gets the No. 7 seed in their brackets.
In another set of games, the ninth-ranked team in each conference hosts the 10th-place team. The winners of those games play the losers of the seventh place vs. eighth place matchups to determine the No. 8 seed in their respective conferences.
This year, the play-in tournament begins April 16 and concludes April 19. The first round of the NBA playoffs begin April 20.
Here’s how things currently look for the play-in in the East:
Here’s how things currently look for the play-in in the West:
The first round of the NBA playoffs begins April 20. Depending on how quickly first-round matchups are decided, the conference semifinals begin either May 4-5 or May 6-7. The conference finals are scheduled to begin May 21-22 but could move to May 19-20 pending conference semifinal results.
The NBA Finals begin June 6.