NBA Playoff Push 2026: One Down, 19 to Go

As I mentioned in my first story about the Stanley Cup Playoff race, the month of March is a very eventful one in sports. It's not just the NHL that enters the home stretch, it's also the National Basketball Association as well. Here's the thing: those of you who have read my stories in the near five years that I've been writing on Vocal notice something. I hardly write about the NBA. I mention the NFL, NHL, and MLB a lot, and I write about the CFL, but not the NBA. The reason is this: the NBA's lack of parity let me down for years. The only time I mention the NBA here is when I do game-by-game recaps of the NBA Finals.

This year, that changes.

For the first time in my five years of writing on Vocal, I will do a weekly look into the NBA's playoff picture. Here's how the NBA's playoff format goes. This is the sixth season of the current format which places the top six teams in each conference into the playoffs automatically, while the teams ranked #7-#10 participate in the Play-In Tournament for the final two spots. The Play-In Tournament goes as follows: #7 hosts #8 in one game, and #9 hosts #10 in the other. The winner of #7 vs #8 gets into the playoffs as their respective conference's #7 seed, while the losing team has one more chance. Regarding #9 vs #10, the winner of that game will face whoever loses #7 vs #8, while whoever loses #9 vs #10 is done. After those games, it's the final game between the losing team in #7 vs #8, and the winning team of #9 vs #10, and the winner of that game gets the #8 seed. After that, the NBA Playoffs commences as normal.

So now that you have all of that in your memory banks, here's a look at the NBA playoff picture:

In the Eastern Conference, the Detroit Pistons are on top at 45-14, while the Boston Celtics are 40-20 and at #2 in the East despite being without Jayson Tatum for the entire season. Rounding out the rest of the top 6: the New York Knicks at 39-22, the Cleveland Cavaliers at 38-24, the Toronto Raptors at 35-25, and the Philadelphia 76ers at 33-27. The Cavs are coming off being #1 in the East last season, while the Knicks were Eastern Conference runners-up last year.

As for the Play-In picture, it's all about the Southeast Division. The Orlando Magic are in first place in the Southeast, but they currently stand as the #7 team by percentage points over their in-state rivals, the Miami Heat, who stand at #8. The Atlanta Hawks, despite dealing away Trae Young, stand at #9, but surprisingly, the Charlotte Hornets are at #10 and lead the immensely struggling Milwaukee Bucks by three games for that spot. And as we've seen all season, the Indiana Pacers, who were one win away from winning the whole thing last year, have been suffering all season due to Tyrese Haliburton being out this entire season.

In the Western Conference, the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder currently have the Association's best record at 47-15, and at #2, it's the team who has been haunting them this season, the San Antonio Spurs. Below those two teams is a logjam between #3 and #6, with the Houston Rockets being on top of that jam, but barely. The Minnesota Timberwolves' victory over the Denver Nuggets broke their tie and placed the former at #4 while the latter dropped to #5, and the Los Angeles Lakers sit at #6 with a record of 36-24.

In the Play-In picture, the Phoenix Suns hold the #7 spot at 34-26, and at #8, it's the Golden State Warriors at 31-29. The Los Angeles Clippers sit at #9 at 28-31, and the Portland Trail Blazers are #10 with a record of 29-33. Portland has the lead by quite a bit; a 4.5 game lead over the struggling Memphis Grizzlies.

We technically do have our first clinch of the season already. The Oklahoma City Thunder's 100-87 victory over the Dallas Mavericks officially locked the Thunder into the Western Conference's top 10, meaning that the worst they can do is end up in the Play-In Tournament. The Thunder haven't officially clinched a playoff spot yet, they still need (at most) nine wins to lock themselves into the Western Conference's top 6.

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The NBA's regular season will end on Sunday, April 12, a day that will see all 30 teams face each other. The Play-In Tournament will take place between April 14-17, and the actual NBA Playoffs will kick off on Saturday, April 18. We are down to the final six weeks of the regular season, and I sense a very thrilling home stretch in the National Basketball Association!