Welcome to the 2026 NBA postseason. As the Charlotte Hornets and Miami Heat reminded us in the opener, this is when the NBA starts to turn wild. The Heat and Hornets gave us an instant classic, that was, in true Play-In Tournament fashion, filled with as many completely inexplicable moments as it had incredible plays. The Suns and Blazers gave us something a bit more conventional, but no less exciting. The Blazers overcame an 11-point fourth-quarter deficit to steal a road win and make it the playoffs for the first time since 2021.
Now the Hornets will advance to Friday’s final Eastern Conference play-in game, where they will see the loser of tomorrow’s bout between Philadelphia and Orlando. The Heat will go home, but tonight’s other loser, the Suns, will have one more shot at the playoffs when they face the winner of tomorrow’s Warriors vs. Clippers game. Only one team, the the Blazers, punched a ticket to the playoffs officially tonight. We have three more spots to dole out over the course of the week.
Those games will come on Wednesday and Friday. For now, let’s focus on our first batch of Play-In Games and pick some winners and losers from the first night of the postseason.
Winner: Both the Hornets and the Heat
The Charlotte side of the equation needs no explanation. This is a signature win for a young team that hopes to have a whole lot more of them in their future. LaMelo Ball played in a couple of Play-In blowouts early in his career. He finally got the monkey off of his back with his first postseason win. Several core players were in the postseason for the first time. Even if the Hornets lose on Friday, or get swept in the first round, a win like this can be a turning point, a chunk of badly-needed experience that matters in a year or two when expectations are higher. Sort of like they usually are for Miami.
Look, the Heat were never going to tank a postseason game, or any game for that matter, but we know what their incentives are. They’ve been in the Play-In Tournament four years in a row. Being here is a cause for celebration for the Hornets. It’s a hamster wheel the Heat are very much trying to escape. The Heat play for championships. They don’t need moral victories. They need assets they can use to escape the middle.
The LaMelo Ball Experience was on full display as Hornets somehow survive play-in thriller vs. Heat
Brad Botkin
Now they get what they need. They’ll have a slot in May’s NBA Draft lottery. Notably, the last two lottery winners, the Mavericks and Hawks, were Play-In Tournament losers. The Heat couldn’t get a Giannis Antetokounmpo trade across the finish line in February. A lucky lottery might change that in May, and eventually get them back to playing in June. That’s the standard in Miami. The current roster isn’t capable of getting them there, but the right draft pick is far likelier to change all of that than an inevitable first-round loss to the Pistons.
Loser: Kon Knueppel(‘s Rookie of the Year chances)
It doesn’t feel fair to call Kon Knueppel a loser. He had a bad game. It happens, especially to shooters. He’ll have a chance to redeem himself on Friday. And potentially in the first round of the playoffs. And even if he didn’t, he’s a rookie star with an enormously bright career ahead of him. He’s going to be fine.
You know what might not be fine? His Rookie of the Year chances. Typically, the window for voters to submit their ballots for NBA awards is closed by the time the Play-In Tournament arrives. That isn’t the case this year because of appeals to the NBA’s 65-game minimum for major awards. Voters haven’t even received their ballots yet. While major awards are meant to be determined solely based on the regular season, voters are human. Anyone who was on the fence entering Tuesday likely wasn’t thrilled with Knueppel’s performance.
After all, a big part of Knueppel’s case is that he was an essential component of a winning team. The Hornets didn’t even let him close the game, as he checked out for the final time with 1:42 remaining and did not appear in overtime. They didn’t even bring him back when they called timeout trailing by three with 12.9 seconds remaining, about as close to a “we need a 3” moment as you’ll see late in a game. It’s hard to imagine Dallas ever closing a meaningful game without Cooper Flagg on the floor. ESPN’s Tim Bontemps conducted a straw poll of likely Rookie of the Year voters that was published on April 3. Knueppel won 80-20. Now, he’ll have to hope that voters don’t let one game outside of the official voting window swing one of the closer races in the award’s history.
Winner: Coby White
Coby White is no stranger to the Play-In Tournament. He is a former Bull, after all. This was his sixth Play-In game, and his fourth against the Heat. He lost his first three bouts with the Heat in the postseason. Tuesday therefore must’ve been a pretty satisfying bit of revenge. White — now playing for his hometown team after spending most of his career in Chicago — scored 19 enormous points, including the game-tying 3-pointer at the end of regulation.
That alone is enough to make him a winner of the game, but here’s the kicker: he’s an impending free agent who just closed a postseason game over the team’s possible Rookie of the Year winner. In the biggest game of the year, he was the player Charles Lee trusted to get the Hornets across the finish line. That bodes very well for him in upcoming contract negotiations. He’s not just a luxury, high-end backup for the injury-prone LaMelo Ball. He’s a proven necessity on the biggest stage.
Loser: Norman Powell
White was the big “impending free agent” winner of the first game. Powell was the loser. It’s been less than two months since Powell played in his first All-Star Game. He carried Miami’s offense through the early portion of the season. But he did so with Tyler Herro largely sidelined.
Herro returned fully after the All-Star break. What became painfully apparent from there was that the Heat could not defend well enough to justify having Herro and Powell on the floor at the same time. In 257 minutes together during the regular season, the Heat were outscored by 32 points. With their season on the line tonight, even without Bam Adebayo for most of the game, the Heat still refused to partner Herro with Powell. As Herro played the bulk of the game, Powell was limited to only 19 minutes of playing time. He didn’t even play poorly. He made five of his nine shots for 11 points. The Heat won his minutes by 11 points. He was just a victim of a poor roster fit, and now won’t have an extended playoff run to showcase himself for the Heat or other teams.
Now Powell enters an extremely precarious free-agent market. He’s going into his age-33 season. The cap space teams either don’t need a scoring guard (like the Lakers) or are still so early in their roster-build that they are unlikely to make a hefty, long-term commitment to a player his age (like the Nets or Bulls). Miami could still re-sign him with Bird Rights, but if the Heat don’t trust him to play with Herro, they’re only going to be willing to offer so much. His best bet is probably hoping that Herro is part of an Antetokounmpo trade, but that’s far from a certainty. Powell had the best start to a season of his career for Miami this year, but he ended it in one of the most disappointing ways imaginable.
Winner: Deni Avdija
Deni Avdija‘s breakout is hardly new. He made the All-Star Team, after all, and is the single biggest reason the Blazers made it this far. But playing in a small, Western Conference market, Avdija was hardly a household name to the more casual fans who start to tune in around now. Tuesday’s Play-In game was, bar none, the highest profile game of his NBA career.
And boy, did he deliver. Avdija finished the night with 41 points, 12 assists and seven rebounds to set up his first playoff appearance, and he did so with the same bag of tricks he’s relied on all season. His whole game relies on going downhill and either finishing at the basket (he ranked 29th in the NBA in paint points per game in the regular season) or drawing a foul (only Luka Dončić and Giannis Antetokounmpo took more free throws per game). Sure enough, almost all of his offense came at the line (8-of-13) or in the paint (a staggering 11-of-12 shooting).
The foul-baiting won’t appeal to everyone, but the finishing near the basket, especially the gorgeous finger-roll that gave Portland a 109-108 lead with 37.3 seconds remaining, was much more entertaining. This was a star-making performance for Avdija, and if he carries it forward, Portland might even be able to steal a game or two against the Spurs in the first round.
Loser: Jalen Green
If this hadn’t been Avdija’s night, it would’ve been Green’s. His first trip to the playoffs last year mostly went badly. He had one 38-point explosion against the Golden State Warriors, but was otherwise held to 12 or fewer in the other six games of Houston’s first-round loss. He’s had little opportunity for image rehabilitation as he was quickly traded for Kevin Durant and spent most of this season injured. He’s been up-and-down since coming back, so quite a bit of postseason skepticism obviously remained.
Green was never going to erase that doubt in a single night, but he did about as much as reasonably could have in a 35-point performance against Portland on Tuesday. On a night in which Devin Booker was swarmed by Portland’s army of perimeter defenders, Green stepped up and nearly took the Suns to the playoffs. Instead, they’re a game away from elimination. If Phoenix loses to the Clippers or Warriors on Friday, this game will be forgotten. It’s a bitter pill to swallow for a player still trying to live up to his billing as a former No. 2 overall pick.
Winner: Chicago Bulls (and also the Blazers)
Come on, you didn’t think we were making it through a Play-In recap without a Bulls subhead, right? They may not be here in body, but they were here in spirit. That was true of White’s presence in the Hornets-Heat game, but the Bulls had a much more tangible stake in the Blazers-Suns game because of their 2021 decision to trade Lauri Markkanen to the Cleveland Cavaliers. In that three team deal, the Bulls landed Portland’s 2022 first-round pick… but with a catch. It was lottery protected every year until 2028. Portland proceeded to miss the next four postseasons. Had the Blazers missed out this year and then again in 2027 and 2028, the Bulls wouldn’t have gotten a first-round pick at all due to the seven-year rule.
That would have been a legitimate possibility no matter how much Portland improves simply due to the Western Conference’s depth. Now, instead of worrying about missing out entirely, the Bulls will very likely get the No. 15 overall pick, the highest that protection allows for, in a very strong draft. That’s a huge win.
Does that make it a loss for Portland? No, and that isn’t just a reflection on their newfound status as a playoff team. It was in Portland’s best interest to convey this pick now as opposed to rolling the dice on the next few years. Why? Because their 2028 first-round pick has swap rights with the Bucks attached thanks to the Damian Lillard trade. In the unlikely scenario in which they had missed the playoffs in 2026 and 2027 but made them in 2028, they would have sacrificed those valuable rights on Milwaukee’s pick, which then would have been ceded to Washington through the Kyle Kuzma-Khris Middleton trade. That makes Portland a winner here as well, and Washington a loser. Even with lottery reform coming, any chance at post-Giannis Antetokounmpo Bucks picks is very valuable.
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