What to know about the NBA 2023 Play-in series: Format, fixtures, and which teams are in attendance?
This is the year we've seen the NBA's Play-in round. A success of the Tournament Organizing Committee in increasing competition in the main season. And the nature of the knockout in just one match brings significant attraction before the Play-off round actually kicks off.
The first round of Play-ins takes place in 2020, when the entire end of the season takes place inside the bubble in Orlando. At that time, only 2 teams competed for the 8th seed position in the West in a single game. This system has become more complete and before fans will be a week full of exciting matches to kick off the postseason.
The format of the Play-in round is relatively easy to understand. The top 6 teams in each region's rankings will go straight to the first round of Play-off. The next 4 teams will compete for the last two seeds and will face off against the best performing teams on the leaderboard.
The battle for the 7th seed position is for the two teams with the seventh and eighth best results in the rankings. The reward for winning this match is a ticket to meet the 2nd seeded team.
The 8th seed position will be the goal of the 9th and 10th ranked teams. After these two teams face each other, the winner will go to the losing team's field in the match between the 7th and 8th ranked teams. and must win one more time to qualify for the Play-off.
With 4 teams stopping after the Play-in round, they will join the 8 previously eliminated teams in the NBA Draft lottery, with a very small chance of winning the 1st pick, corresponding to Victor Wembanyama this year.
- East: Miami Heat, Atlanta Hawks, Toronto Raptors and Chicago Bulls
- West: Los Angeles Lakers, Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Pelicans and Oklahoma City Thunder.
12/4:
- 06:30: Miami Heat - Atlanta Hawks
- 09:00: Los Angeles Lakers - Minnesota Timberwolves
April 13:
- 06:00: Toronto Raptors - Chicago Bulls
- 08:30: New Orleans Pelicans - Oklahoma City Thunder
April 15:
- Miami Heat/Atlanta Hawks - Toronto Raptors/Chicago Bulls
- Los Angeles Lakers/Minnesota Timberwolves - New Orleans Pelicans/Oklahoma City Thunder
Since the Play-in round expanded with the current format in 2021, the 7th-ranked teams have won the right to advance right after the first match. Meanwhile, no 10th-ranked team has entered the Play-off round.
But the other two positions are a completely different story. Of the four 8th-ranked teams that have attended the Play-in, only the Washington Wizards made it to the next round, when they lost to the Boston Celtics but then overcame the Indiana Pacers.
In other words, the 8th-ranked teams have a 1 win - 7 loss record, and the 9th ranked teams have a record in the past 2 years of winning 7 - losing 1. Good news for the Toronto Raptors and New Orleans Pelicans , while it's bad news for the Atlanta Hawks and Minnesota Timberwolves.
However, the future of these teams is not very bright. No team has made it past the first round of Play-off after winning the Play-in. The best results went to the LA Lakers, New Orleans Pelicans and Minnesota Timberwolves, who won 2 games in the inaugural Play-off series. The worst performance is just the Brooklyn Nets superteam, when they beat the Boston Celtics' broom last season.
Currently, the king of scoring of the Play-in round is Ja Morant, when he scored 90 points after 3 appearances (accounting for 23% of the Play-in matches in the tournament's history). But when it comes to the average score, surely no one can beat Jayson Tatum. He set a record of scoring 50 points in the victory against the Washington Wizards in 2021 - also the only time he appeared in this round.
