NBA Playoff Push: What's at stake for final day of regular season action?

The madness of March basketball may be over, but the anarchy of April hoops in the NBA is just getting started.

What many have dubbed "chaos week" around the association — considering 19 of 20 post-season seeds had yet to be determined heading into Monday — has reached its final checkpoint.

All 30 NBA teams played on Friday — looking to determine the 15 remaining post-season seeds — and after an action-packed night, the picture began to look clearer. Every seed in the Eastern Conference is now locked in, for instance, and fans can now start preparing for the Play-In Tournament to commence on April 15.

Before that, however, there are still a couple of things up in the air if we look to the West. Only the top three spots are locked in, with a logjam in the middle and two squads jockeying at the bottom for Play-In seeding. And with one final night remaining in the Association, as all 30 teams take the floor for the last time on Sunday, the stakes couldn't be higher.

It's been a while since seeding races have felt this tight. About a decade, in fact.

The 2014-15 season saw a Western Conference in which the second through sixth seeds were separated by just one game — aside from the 51-31 Portland Trail Blazers, who oddly ended up fourth despite a worse record because of the old division rules. That year, the Spurs entered the final day of the regular season as the second seed and left all the way down in sixth place. That was then followed by a 2015-16 campaign that featured an Eastern Conference that had seeds three through six all finish with an identical 48-34 record.

But what separates this year's race toward the post-season is that none of those photo finishes dealt with the extra wrinkle of the Play-In Tournament. In today's NBA, if a team drops out of a top-six seed, well, it's one or two bad performances away from missing the playoffs altogether. Making both the challenge and drama of getting to the big dance that much more intense.

With that being said, here's a breakdown of what's at stake heading into the final day of regular-season action and what each team has left to gain or lose.

Which teams survive the Wild West?

With the top of the Western Conference already determined, as the Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Lakers have captured the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 seeds — and the ninth and 10th spots only being fought over by the Sacramento Kings and Dallas Mavericks — all the intrigue is left in the middle.

Heading into Sunday, just one game separates the Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Clippers, Memphis Grizzlies, Golden State Warriors and Minnesota Timberwolves in determining seeds four through eight.

And with a plethora of scenarios that remain possible and more tie-breaker criteria to keep in mind than anyone cares to track, here's the short and sweet of it. There are four teams (Nuggets, Clippers, Timberwolves and Warriors) battling for the final three automatic playoff spots in the West.

Big wins by Denver (over Memphis) and L.A. (over Sacramento) on Friday made sure both those teams can't finish any lower than seventh, meaning should they fall into the Play-In, they'll need to win just one game to advance. Golden State, meanwhile, kept its chances of avoiding the Play-in alive by handling Portland. Only just, however, as the best the Warriors can finish is sixth.

The Grizzlies might end up as the big losers of the weekend as they entered Friday with a chance of grabbing the fourth seed and securing homecourt in the first round. But a loss to the Nuggets locked them into the Play-In and made it so the best they can finish is the seventh seed.

All the while, Minnesota remains the ultimate wild card in the West playoff picture. The Timberwolves are the lone remaining team of those battling in the middle of the Western Conference that can finish as high as the fourth seed or as low as the eighth. Yet for all the supposed variance, their path forward is arguably the simplest. Win against the lowly Utah Jazz on Sunday, and a playoff spot is theirs. A victory they'll need to secure without star guard Anthony Edwards, who picked up an ill-advised technical foul on Friday, his 18th of the season, and is now suspended for the team's regular-season finale.

In a conference that's historically been anything but easy to come out of, grabbing early homecourt advantage while getting a couple extra days rest by avoiding the Play-In — especially for older teams like the Warriors and Clippers — could make all the difference between a long versus short post-season run.

Here are the key games to keep an eye on this weekend:

SUNDAY'S GAMES
Utah at Minnesota, 3:30 p.m.
Dallas at Memphis, 3:30 p.m.
L.A. Clippers at Golden State, 3:30 p.m.
Denver at Houston, 3:30 p.m.

What to make of the East?

With all 10 post-season seeds in the Eastern Conference now locked in, there isn't too much to keep in mind for the final day of regular-season action.

Still, it'll be worth keeping an eye on a couple of games. For starters, Indiana visiting Cleveland could be a conference semifinals look ahead should both squads advance out of the first round. Meanwhile, Orlando taking on Atlanta will be a definite preview of the East's seven-eight Play-In matchup on Tuesday.

Aside from that, it could be worth nothing how a couple of the top-six teams finish out the regular season. Momentum matters in the playoffs, and for New York, a win over neighbouring Brooklyn could act as a timely boost after the Knicks blew a 20-point lead to the Cavs on Friday, yet still managed to fall into the third seed.

Meanwhile, the Bucks and Pistons theoretically have nothing left to play for after Milwaukee picked up a six-point win over Detroit on Friday. Both squads appeared to get what they wanted from the outcome, as the Bucks matchup better against the Pacers (3-1 on the season), who they'll now face in the four-five matchup, while the Pistons get to take on the Knicks — who they faired well against this season (3-1) — in the three-six series.

Yet, considering the chippiness of that last game and the fact they'll run it back on Sunday with little time for cooler heads to prevail, it could be the perfect tune-up game for both squads heading into the post-season.

And while most of the focus is on the juggernauts atop the Eastern Conference, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the teams battling at the bottom. This year's quartet of Play-In teams might be the most in-form collection of squads we've seen heading into the mini-tournament since it was introduced in 2020-21.

The Magic, for instance, locked up the seventh seed thanks to a five-game win streak and going 8-2 through their last 10. The Bulls and Heat have been right behind, going an identical 7-3 through that stretch in order to bring themselves within two games of the Hawks.

If Miami's run to the Finals from the No. 8 seed in 2023 taught us anything, it's to not count out the battle-tested squads once the playoffs get underway. The Hawks, for instance, won their season series against both the Cavaliers and Celtics this year and should enter any potential matchup against the top two seeds with some optimism. The likes of Cleveland and Boston appear unbeatable, at least in the first round, but that sense of hubris might just be what the bottom four teams are hoping for.

Here are the key games to keep an eye on this weekend:

SUNDAY'S GAMES
New York at Brooklyn, 1 p.m.
Orlando at Atlanta, 1 p.m.
Detroit at Milwaukee, 1 p.m.
Indiana at Cleveland, 1 p.m.