By TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer
MIAMI (AP) — The play-in tournament field is set, and just like that the postseason has arrived in the NBA.
First up: an elimination game in Charlotte. The ninth-place Hornets will take on the 10th-place Miami Heat on Tuesday night (7:30 p.m. Eastern) in a win-or-go-home game to open the play-in tournament.
The rest of the play-in schedule:
— West No. 7 Phoenix meets West No. 8 Portland on Tuesday (10 p.m. Eastern), with the winner moving on to face Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs in Round 1.
— East No. 7 Philadelphia plays host to East No. 8 Orlando on Wednesday (7:30 p.m. Eastern), with the winner of that game set to meet the Boston Celtics in Round 1.
— The Los Angeles Clippers, No. 9 in the West, play host to No. 10 Golden State on Wednesday (10 p.m. Eastern) in an elimination game. The winner will play the Suns-Trail Blazers loser on Friday for the right to meet No. 1 Oklahoma City in Round 1.
— Also Friday, the Hornets-Heat winner will visit the 76ers-Magic loser to decide which team advances to face No. 1 Detroit in Round 1.
“Our group understands what wins and loses for us,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “And that’s the most important thing.”
Rest of Round 1 schedule
The top two seeds in each conference — Detroit, Boston, Oklahoma City and San Antonio — will wait until either Tuesday or Friday to find out their Round 1 opponents.
Some teams already know. The 3-vs.-6 and 4-vs.-5 Round 1 matchups are set.
In the East, No. 3 New York will play No. 6 Atlanta, and No. 4 Cleveland takes on No. 5 Toronto. In the West, No. 3 Denver will play No. 6 Minnesota — the third time in four years those teams have met in the postseason — while the fourth-seeded Los Angeles Lakers will face No. 5 Houston.
How Sunday went down
Inside the Heat locker room on Sunday night, everybody’s eyes were on a giant television set showing the end of the Orlando-Boston game.
With good reason. It decided a whole lot in the East.
The Celtics beat the Magic, which dropped Orlando into the No. 8 spot for the play-in. It also ensured the Miami-Charlotte game would be played Tuesday, since Philadelphia cannot host basketball games Monday or Tuesday because of arena scheduling conflicts with the NHL’s Flyers.
“This one is done,” Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said after the loss in Boston. “You’ve got to make sure you focus your time and your attention and your energy all on the Philadelphia 76ers right now.”
Portland beat Sacramento to earn the No. 8 spot in the West going into the play-in, and therefore will have two chances to win one game and earn a playoff berth. The Clippers beat Golden State in their finale, and now those teams will play again in Inglewood, California, on Wednesday in an elimination game.
“Each team knows the other pretty well, just from playing against them a lot over the years,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.
Denver — which ended the regular season on a 12-game winning streak — topped San Antonio to lock up the No. 3 seed. The Lakers beat Utah, and that result means LeBron James will be taking on Kevin Durant in their first postseason meeting since the 2018 NBA Finals.
Points record falls
More points were scored this season than in any other in NBA history, with the previous record of 282,127 points getting passed Sunday evening — with about seven games left to be played on the schedule.
The final total for the season: 284,395 points.
It wasn’t a record for points per game; that mark of 118.8 points per team, per game, has stood since 1961-62. This season’s pace of 115.6 points per team was sixth-best in NBA history.
Jokic plays, will be award eligible
Denver’s Nikola Jokic appeared in the Nuggets’ game against San Antonio on Sunday night, which pushed his total to 65 games for the season — and therefore got him eligibility on the NBA’s award ballots that will be sent out later this week.
Jokic was second in last year’s MVP balloting behind only Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, That made Jokic just the third player in NBA history with a top-two finish in five or more consecutive seasons, joining Bill Russell and Larry Bird.
Jokic won MVP in 2021, 2023 and 2024, plus was second in 2022 and again last year.
Russell and Bird, a pair of Boston Celtics greats, each were first or second in the balloting in six consecutive seasons.
Stat notes
The league’s statistical champions have been known for some time, but now they’re officially official.
The Lakers’ Luka Doncic (33.5 points per game) won the scoring title, while Jokic won both the rebounding (12.9 per game) and assist (10.7 per game) titles to complete another season in which he averaged a triple-double.
Other stat items of note:
— The league finished with 96 games decided by 30 points or more, 16 more than the previous record (set last season).
— The average margin of victory this season was 13.3 points, another record (previous was 12.7, set last season).
— This one is wild. Last season in the NBA, teams listed as favorites by BetMGM Sportsbook went 853-377. This season, they went … 853-377.
___
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba