Chapter 1: What are the final standings and playoff matchups for the NBA playoffs?
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily for April 13th, 2026. I'm Dave Dufour here with Zena Keita and Espera Henne coming up. The regular season is over. The playoffs are set and we're going to talk some play in action in addition to our bold predictions. Good morning, everybody. What is up, guys? Congratulations to you. Made it through another regular season. 82 games. Too many. Clearly.
Yeah, it was a long season.
I like the horns. Can we do it? Yeah, you can hit the horns. Come on. Celebratory horns. Zena, your horns were much better. 182 players. We're listed as out on Sunday, guys. What are we doing here? How is that even possible? There's only 450 regular roster spots in the NBA.
I know. I kind of wish we could have this stat for previous seasons. Because I'm like, is that normal?
I think last season was the mid-170s or so. By the way, shout out to the athletic and the entire NBA staff for their support. End of regular season live blog that was going all day long. Every team played. For some reason, all the games started at the same time. They didn't stagger it. I guess maybe the Masters, you know, Rory McIlroy came back and won that.
I mean, with 180 players missing, I'm glad it started all at the same time.
Well, some of the games felt like they were just trying to sim to the end. Honestly, we had some bad losses. The Celtics played nobody. Shout out to Luka Garza, Baylor Shireman, and Ron Harper Jr. They combined for 84 points and 25 rebounds and embarrassed the Orlando Magic, banishing the Magic to the eighth seed and a play-in trip to Philadelphia. Wow.
just by the way it's important to note that the magic were playing their guys so yes that's the key part there the magic were fully healthy they were fully trying in this game down the stretch they had multiple opportunities to win jalen suggs hit a very clutch three-point shot on the other side of the floor luca garza knocked down a clutch three-point shot to tie it back up also
Paulo Banqueiro missed travel call on this baseline. Franz Wagner ill-advised three-point shot. The offense collapsing as it usually does for this Orlando Magic team. All of the problems of this season just came down to the last quarter for this Magic group. I've said this for a lot of teams this year. Teams will show you who they are. Believe them. We need to believe this is the Orlando magic.
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Chapter 2: Which series has the most potential for an upset in the playoffs?
So, guys, I'm going to ask just... And we'll include the play-in games here. What series or play-in game do you think is going to have the most excitement?
Wow. I think... The Suns and Trailblazers. For me, I mean, we know the Trailblazers have had a really great season despite obviously not being in the top in the West. But when you think about who is in the top of the West and how competitive it is, it makes sense that the Trailblazers haven't had enough to be at the top. But Denny Avdia is having a breakout season.
We love the athleticism that's in Portland. And I think that is what gets me excited about them going up against Phoenix because Phoenix also has showcased Their defense is so much fun to watch. They've got huge guys like Oswego Daro, Ryan Dunn, playing outside, being able to guard guards. We've seen Devin Booker come back and make a, I would say like,
I mean, he has his own he had his little own little mini MVP run in the sense of how huge he is for leading this team's defense and how big he is for the energy that the Phoenix Suns offer. I just think that there's an opportunity here for it's not a great shot for shot making, but it's a great opportunity for athleticism to play a part between these two teams.
So I think they'll be the most exciting one.
What are you looking at?
Yeah, maybe this is an easy one, but I have to say round three of Denver Nuggets versus Minnesota Timberwolves. I mean, they have been incredible playoff series in the past. We've seen how the Timberwolves have been able to guard Nikola Jokic and bother him and bother Jamal Murray. But they're also coming into this series a bit injured. There's questions about Anthony Edwards and his health.
There's questions about Jada McDaniels and his health. The Timberwolves have kind of stumbled into the end of this regular season. And we just talked about how, you know, Denver has set themselves up for a hard path to the Western Conference finals or finals or however far they go.
But I ultimately am kind of curious how they're going to look in the first round against a team that has pretty much had their number in the playoffs in the past. And if they can get over the hump with this new group, that is obviously deeper, that has more options with Jokic playing the way he is with Murray playing the way he is.
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