Prepping for the NBA Play-In Tournament
With the No. 9 Lakers playing host to the No. 10 Warriors on this Newsletter Tuesday, it's a good time to review some PIT history
We're approaching three years since LeBron James memorably announced to the world in May 2021 that "whoever came up with that s--- needs to be fired."
James, as you'll surely recall, was referring to the NBA's Play-In Tournament, which his Los Angeles Lakers might actually need this spring just to reach the NBA playoffs.
The LeBron Lakers have already played two Play-In games in the brief history of the PIT and won both ... but they were the West's No. 7 seed on both occasions. It could be reasonably argued in both cases that the Play-In round put the Lakers' playoff status at risk — especially after last season's Lakers went all the way to the Western Conference finals from No. 7.
These Lakers play host to the 10th-seeded Warriors on Tuesday night in a crucial late-season showdown on TNT as the West's No. 9 seed. So the Play-In route, this time around, could be painted as a fortuitous escape route for the Lakers' season if they can't move up at least one spot by Sunday when the 2023-24 regular season wraps up.
The Atlanta Hawks, who sit 10th in the East as of Tuesday morning, are the NBA's most frequent Play-In team to date, going 3-0 and qualifying twice leading up to Year 4 of the NBA's full implementation of the concept. Next week will mark Atlanta's third successive trip to the PIT ... with a first-round matchup against 62-16 Boston looming as the Hawks' best-case scenario.
As a refresher: No. 7 and No. 8 in both the East and West will play one game next week on No. 7's floor to determine the seventh seed in each conference. The loser of those two games will face the winner of the No. 9 vs. No. 10 game in each conference in a one-game duel for the eighth seed.
"I like the Play-In," Hawks coach Quin Snyder said. "I think it's another layer to the season that keeps people engaged in different ways. I think there's a flavor to it like the NCAA Tournament because it is only a singular game.
"Obviously last year, with what Miami did, I think that's something that's in the back of everybody's mind. I liken it to the NCAA Tournament in the sense that sometimes you'll hear teams just say, 'Let's just get in.' And what Miami was able to do last year, I think, adds a lot of weight to that mindset."
Who can forget last season's Heat? Jimmy Butler and Co. stunningly lost the 7/8 game at home to Snyder's Hawks, barely squeaked past Chicago with their season on the win-or-go-home brink and then proceeded to dismantle top-seeded Milwaukee in five games in the first round to launch a Cinderella ride to the NBA Finals as the East's No. 8 seed.
Play-In 2024, of course, offers up the very real possibility that Miami will face Philadelphia and the freshly reactivated Joel Embiid in a 7 vs. 8 game next week if neither of those teams formerly regarded as certain title contenders can bump Indiana out of the East's No. 6 seed during these final six days of the regular season.
"Obviously you'd rather not be in the Play-In and have to kind of survive in that way," Snyder said. "But I think it's good for the league and it seems like people enjoy it. When you're in our situation and you wouldn't be in the playoffs were it not for the Play-In, it's obviously ... we're biased that regard."
Excluding the modified version of the Play-In Tournament that was employed during the Walt Disney World bubble in Orlando to complete the 2019-20 schedule, there have been nine Play-In games in each conference over the past three seasons featuring 18 different franchises. Here is a breakdown of how those teams have fared:
Eastern Conference
Atlanta 3-0 (qualified for the playoffs twice)
Washington 2-0 (qualified once)
Boston 1-0 (qualified once)
Brooklyn 1-0 (qualified once)
Miami 1-1 (qualified once)
Indiana 1-1
Chicago 1-1
Toronto 0-1
Charlotte 0-2
Cleveland 0-2
Western Conference
Los Angeles Lakers 2-0 (qualified for the playoffs twice)
Memphis 2-0 (qualified once)
Minnesota 2-1 (qualified twice)
New Orleans 2-1 (qualified once)
Golden State 1-1
Oklahoma City 1-1
LA Clippers 0-2
San Antonio 0-2
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Live appearance this weekend!
CANNOT wait for the next edition of The Saturday Stein Line.
I'm hosting my weekly radio show on Dallas' 97.1 (FM) The Freak at RJ Duke Sports in McKinney, Texas. Which means that the show, presented by Panini Trading Cards and Collectibles, will unfold LIVE from the scene of a true collectibles venue on the second-to-last day of the 2023-24 regular season.
If you're in the area and can join us, please meet me there Saturday at noon CT for the one-hour broadcast. I will also be hanging out after the show to talk NBA playoffs and collectibles with fellow card shop enthusiasts like me. Here are the details:
Saturday's show, furthermore, will feature the first live card break of my life. We're going to bust open a 2023-24 box of Panini Origins Basketball cards and give away the contents to contest entrants who attend in person. Hope to see some of our Substack community there if possible.
Numbers Game
🏀 2045
I got totally swept up Monday in Eclipse Mania after never really getting sucked in previously. Dallas was in the "path of totality" for a full four minutes Monday afternoon and it was truly mesmerizing. Experts say that the next total solar eclipse that will be highly visible throughout the United States does not arrive until Aug. 12, 2045. Hope this Substack is still here.
🏀 5
The season's fifth and final publication of Power Rankings from The Committee (of One) arrives at last next Tuesday. It'll be the first time in Committee history that I've ever done the rankings after the regular season is complete. I was originally going to run them on this Newsletter Tuesday, but then I decided it would be better for fans of the 10 teams whose seasons end this Sunday to have something to look forward to next week.
🏀 50
Leave it to my pal Justin Kubatko to explain via a couple different pieces you can get to from this link how Detroit's Malachi Flynn might be the most unlikely 50-point scorer of all time.
🏀 3
Flynn followed up his 50-ball with a three-point performance in Memphis that included 0-for-12 shooting from the field.
🏀 8
Dallas' Kyrie Irving went eight seasons without winning Player of the Week honors before earning West POTW recognition on Monday. Irving was last named POTW as a Cleveland Cavalier during the 2014-15 season.
🏀 16
This is the second season in a row that Dallas' Luka Dončić has avoided a one-game suspension for technical foul accumulation with help from the league office. Dončić has had a league-high three Ts rescinded this season, leaving him with 13 ... one behind Houston's Dillon Brooks for the league lead.
🏀 7
Players are suspended for one game when they reach 16 techs for the season and for an additional game with every other tech thereafter (18, 20, 22, etc.). The tech counter, though, resets to zero in the playoffs, with players earning a one-game suspension only if they reach seven postseason Ts.
🏀 37
Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal have played in 37 games together this season, meaning they can increase that number to exactly half of the 82-game schedule if the Suns' star trio appears in all four of their remaining games. Phoenix is 23-14 — which computes to a 51-win pace — when all three are in uniform.
🏀 28-7
The 76ers are 28-7 this when both Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey are in uniform. As covered in the Monday Musings, Embiid and Maxey join Phoenix's Booker as the league's only three players with three 50-point games this season.
🏀 65
The 65-game rule has pushed voting for the NBA's year-end awards into the week after the regular season after balloting was historically concluded by the Monday after the season for years. A fuller explanation via the following Substack note:
🏀 2
The NFL recently announced that it will indeed stage two games on Christmas this year even though the holiday falls on a Wednesday in 2024. There were three NFL games played on Christmas in 2023 ... all of which generated a television audience of at least 27 million viewers.
🏀 5
The NBA has scheduled a five-game slate every Christmas since 2008. The average audience for this season's five games fell shy of three million viewers.
🏀 97.1
One last reminder before we go: I'm on the radio Saturdays from noon to 1 PM CT on 97.1 (FM) The Freak in Dallas with an hour of live NBA talk presented by Panini Trading Cards and Collectibles. Join us online by clicking the link embedded in this sentence or via the iHeart radio app to listen to The Saturday Stein Line on this or any Saturday ... or catch the podcasted version of the show once it drops via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or #whereveryougetyourpodcasts. And remember: Click the microphone icon on the 97.1 (FM) The Freak feed on the iHeart Radio app to leave a 30-second message or a question for me to answer on an upcoming show.