Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I finally understand how the NBA play-in tournament works.
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The NBA playoffs essentially begin tonight
The NBA play-in tournament is back for a second year—and it begins tonight.
While I think it’s undeniable that the addition of the play-in—by expanding the postseason field to 10 teams—has improved the quality of play at the end of the regular season, it’s still a new concept that has taken some getting used to. Let’s break down the schedule and how it all works.
The two games tonight feature the No. 7 and No. 8 teams in each conference facing off against each other. Whichever team wins earns the No. 7 seed in the playoffs:
- Cavaliers at Nets (7 p.m. ET, TNT)
- Clippers at Timberwolves (9:30 p.m. ET, TNT)
The team that wins the Eastern Conference game tonight will face the Celtics in the first round. The West winner will get the Grizzlies. The losers are then forced into do-or-die games Friday against the winners of the following games, which will be played tomorrow night:
- Hornets at Hawks (7 p.m. ET, ESPN)
- Spurs at Pelicans (9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN)
The No. 8 seed in the East will face the Heat in the first round, while the last team in from the West will face the Suns.
The top seeds in the NBA playoffs rarely face a challenge in the first round, so the play-in tournament seems like a great way to inject some extra drama into the early part of the postseason. It doesn’t get much more dramatic than the Nets, who still remain championship hopefuls, having to survive a potential win-or-go-home game just to make the playoffs. The next few days should be a great appetizer for a thrilling spring of basketball.
The best of Sports Illustrated
In today’s Daily Cover story, Michael Rosenberg explores the NBA’s Kyrie Irving conundrum:
“If Kyrie Irving and the Nets somehow turn it on this spring and win a championship, what does that say about the league?”
Wilton Jackson gives his winners and losers of last night’s WNBA draft. … Tom Verducci examines the pending free agency of Aaron Judge, who turned down an extension offer from the Yankees last week. … Howard Beck writes that all the arguments about the NBA MVP Award are fundamentally flawed. … While the Lakers have blamed their lousy season on injuries, Chris Mannix isn’t buying it.
Around the Sports World
See the full results of the WNBA draft here. … The Lerner family is reportedly considering selling the Nationals. … The Lakers are reportedly hoping to hire Raptors coach Nick Nurse to replace Frank Vogel. … Adam Schefter issued an apology for his insensitive tweet breaking the news of Dwayne Haskins’s death. … ESPN published a long investigative piece about Todd Hodne, another sexual predator who was part of the Penn State football program.
The top five...
… MLB moments from yesterday:
5. Guardians rookie Steven Kwan reaching base for the 15th time in his first four games, more than anyone in MLB history
4. Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm saying “I f------ hate this place” after making yet another error in front of Phillies fans—and owning up to it after the game
3. Rangers pitcher Taylor Hearn fielding a question from his media member sister during a press conference
2. Oakland’s Sean Murphy getting hit square in the butt with a pitch
1. Rays outfielder Brett Phillips, pitching in mop-up duty, makes a great sliding catch near the dugout
SIQ
On this day in 1992, Boston’s Matt Young became the third pitcher in MLB history to accomplish what feat? (Hint: two other pairs of pitchers have combined to complete the same accomplishment, including as recently as 2008.)
Yesterday’s SIQ: Who are the four players ahead of Mark Teixiera on the all-time home run leaderboard for switch hitters?
Answer: Mickey Mantle (536), Eddie Murray (504), Chipper Jones (468) and Carlos Beltrán (435). Coincidentally, Teixeira was teammates with Jones in Atlanta and Beltrán in New York. Teixiera and Beltrán actually hit their 400th career homers with the Yankees within a few months of each other in 2016.
Teixiera hit 297 of his home runs as a lefty and 112 as a righty (including three batting as a righty against right-handed pitchers). His ability to hit for power from both sides of the plate is perhaps even rarer than his ranking on the all-time switch-hitter home run leaderboard might indicate. Not only is he one of just five switch hitters with at least 400 career home runs, only nine have hit at least 300 and 29 have hit more than 200.
Teixiera won’t join Mantle, Murray, Jones and (likely) Beltrán in the Hall of Fame, but he might have gotten there if injuries hadn’t slowed him down in his final seasons and forced him to retire at 36. Matt Martell made a compelling case for Teixiera’s candidacy in January, but he received just 1.5% of the vote this winter, falling off the ballot in his first year of eligibility.
From the Vault: April 12, 2010
John Biever/Sports Illustrated
I had a few options for a cover to feature here but I decided there was no better time to go with this one, starring Duke’s Jon Scheyer. Last week, he took over for Mike Krzyzewski as the new coach of the Blue Devils. Can you believe that it was 12 years ago that he led them to their fourth national championship?
That 2010 title game against Butler was great, but it was nearly the most memorable in tournament history. If Gordon Hayward’s half-court heave at the buzzer had been a couple of inches to the left, the Bulldogs would have pulled off the upset of a lifetime in the most dramatic way imaginable.
“Good thing this isn't a movie,” Scheyer said after the game, referring to Hayward’s shot.
It was Duke’s first national title since 2001 and its first Final Four since ’04. Missing the Final Four in five straight years is nothing to be ashamed of, but it was the longest such streak of Coach K’s tenure. Krzyzewski credited his time spent coaching the U.S. men’s national team at the Beijing Olympics in ’08 with helping to lead Duke back to the top of the sport.
“Every player on that team is really smart,” Krzyzewski said. “Every [assistant] coach [Mike D'Antoni, Nate McMillan and Jim Boeheim] is really smart. I learned so much, like how not to have complicated game plans or how to strategize certain situations. I learned to listen. I listen more to my own players now. And where else would I go to get that at this point in my career? A clinic? If there’s a clinic, I’m probably giving the clinic.”
You could also say that the nine years working as an assistant under Krzyzewski have been a coaching clinic for Scheyer. Now it’s up to him to lead Duke to the same heights the program soared to when he was a player.
Check out more of SI’s archives and historic images at vault.si.com.
