Oklahoma City and Cleveland are the top seeds in the NBA playoffs, which comes with some perks. They'll have home-court advantage for at least three rounds and, presumably, an easier path than others to advancing.
It also comes with a challenge: They'll have just one full day to really prepare for Game 1.
Some teams will have a full week to prepare for their first playoff foe. Some teams get four or five days. But given the way the play-in tournament is structured, the Thunder and Cavaliers won't know their foes until late Friday night — then will open Round 1 matchups against those opponents on Sunday, with only one practice day to lock in on a game plan.
“It's tough. It's interesting,” Milwaukee coach Doc Rivers said. “There were years where I had that issue and it's definitely more challenging.”
The exact same scenario didn't hold the Thunder back a year ago. New Orleans won the Western Conference's elimination play-in game for the No. 8 seed on a Friday, started a series at top-seeded Oklahoma City on Sunday, the Thunder squeaked out a win in Game 1 and went on to sweep the matchup with a couple of blowouts in there.
And just like last year, the Thunder are spending these extra days working on themselves.
“It’s a unique situation to have this much time in between games and to not know your opponent," Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault said. "Now, our opponent won't be able to prepare. We’ll both have the same amount of time to prepare. We both have Saturday and then we play Sunday. So, you’re in no disadvantage. But we definitely learned from last year on how to manage the week.”
The Cavaliers won't present any information on opposing personnel to their players until after the opponent is locked in. Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson did get one piece of information very late Tuesday night, that his team's Game 1 will be at 7 p.m. on Sunday.
It could have been as early as 1 p.m., depending on what the league and its broadcast partners wanted. To Atkinson, those few extra hours can make a difference.
“We'll have more time to maybe dive into personnel a little more,” Atkinson said.
The Cavs have had an assistant coach assigned to each specific team all season, so work is being done on all three of their possible Round 1 opponents. Atkinson won't start thinking about possible matchups until later this week.
“I think there is an organization to it, a real organization," Atkinson said. “And it’s multi-faceted. ... We have things we’ve been working on, things we think will translate to playoffs.”
There are four matchups — Indiana-Milwaukee and New York-Detroit in the East, the Los Angeles Lakers-Minnesota and Denver-the Los Angeles Clippers in the West — that have been set since the end of the regular season. Those teams get a full week to get ready for Round 1, knowing their opponents. All of those series open on Saturday.
The No. 2 seeds in each conference learned their opponents on Tuesday night, when Orlando earned the right to play Boston and Golden State won its way into a playoff meeting with Houston.
Had the Magic or Warriors lost Tuesday, they would have had to play elimination games on Friday. Winning to open the play-in tournament allowed both teams a chance to take a little bit of time to exhale.
“It took 83 games, but we're right where we want to be — which is back in the playoffs and we've got a chance,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “But maybe most importantly, we get the time to rest and prepare because these guys need that desperately right now.”
Oklahoma City will play either Memphis, Sacramento or Dallas in Round 1 of the West playoffs. Cleveland will play either Atlanta, Chicago or Miami in Round 1 of the East playoffs. Sometime Friday night, the Thunder and Cavaliers will finally know who it is.
Neither club seems overly worked up about the uncertainty that they're dealing with this week. And it hasn't been much of a problem in the past, either; since 2021, when this version of the play-in tournament began, No. 1 seeds are 6-2 in Game 1s against No. 8 seeds, plus have gone on to win that opening series seven of eight times — the exception being when Miami upset Milwaukee in 2023.
“It's the first round,” Cavaliers forward Tristan Thompson said. “No disrespect to those teams, but we're supposed to win that series.”
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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA
Tim Reynolds, The Associated Press
