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With their win over the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday night, the Phoenix Suns grabbed hold of something that feels official when you say it out loud. The seventh seed. Because yeah, they “secured” it. In theory. In the clean, sanitized version the league office pushes out. In reality, all they did was earn the right to host a high-stakes coin flip inside the NBA Play-In Tournament, which lives somewhere between competition and content inventory.

You can feel the fingerprints of Adam Silver all over it. Rolled out in 2021, polished up, packaged nice, and sold as opportunity, drama, and meaningful basketball. And maybe it is, if you squint hard enough and ignore the part where an 82-game grind now funnels into a night where one bad shooting stretch, one tweaked ankle, one whistle that feels a little off, and everything you built starts to wobble.

This year it comes with a new corporate tag hanging off it, courtesy of SoFi, because of course it does. Every inch of this thing is monetized, every moment stretched and dressed up so it can be sold, replayed, clipped, sponsored, and pushed. It is less about rewarding a season and more about creating another product to slide into the league’s portfolio, something shiny that executives can point to while counting the revenue streams stacking up behind it.

And look, I understand the machine. This is how it works. Take something pure, run it through the grinder, and present it back to us like it is an upgrade. Tell us it is good for the game. Tell us it adds excitement. Tell us it gives more teams a chance. Meanwhile, the teams that actually handled their business for six months are now staring at a scenario where one weird night can rewrite everything. That is where the frustration lives. You fight through the season, the travel, the injuries, the weird Tuesday nights in February that nobody remembers, all to land in a spot that used to mean something concrete. Now it means you get to host a game that decides whether your work holds weight or gets tossed into the same pile as everyone else who hovered around mediocrity.

So yeah, the Suns won. They put themselves in position. There is value in that, there always is. But this thing they are walking into — this shiny, sponsor-stamped, chaos-driven mini-tournament — is not a reward. It is a gamble dressed up like progress. And everyone is supposed to clap for it.

Rant over, I guess. Classify me as no fun, but I’m simply not a fan of possibly losing out on a postseason opportunity to a team that finished under .500. Handle your business is the answer, I know. Like most Adam Silver-based pointless tournaments, I can’t find myself excited for their sheer existence. Everything is a damn tournament now in the NBA. I wonder if each morning at the NBA’s corporate offices there is a tournament for who gets to take a shit in the bathroom first. Why? “Because it’s fun.” I just hope the guy who made the poor decision to slam some Taco Bell last night after one too many margs wins that tournament, for all of their sakes.

All of that being said, it is time for a quick history lesson on the seven seed. Because if you are going to live in this space, you might as well understand the room you are standing in.

Start here. In the first five seasons of the NBA Play-In Tournament, the seventh seed has always made the playoffs. Every single time. That is a 100% advancement rate into the first round. Their overall mark hosting the first Play-In game sits at 8-of-10 for teams slotted in that spot. The only stumbles came in 2023, when the Hawks beat the Heat, and in 2024, when the Pelicans dropped their opener to the Lakers. The Heat then advanced after downing the Bulls, and the Pelicans recovered to beat the Sacramento Kings.

That is the landscape sitting in front of the Phoenix Suns. The path is there. The numbers say it is there, and the door has opened every time for teams in this position. And still, you can feel that little voice creeping in, the one that says “do not be the one that breaks the pattern”. Because the scenario is simple. Lose twice, both games at home, and the season ends. You sit there as the seven seed in name, and nowhere to be found in the postseason. That possibility exists. It is real and it lingers whether you want to acknowledge it or not.

History also reminds you that this spot is not a dead end. It can be a runway. In 2023, those same Los Angeles Lakers came through the Play-In, handled the Memphis Grizzlies in six games, then took out the Golden State Warriors in six more before running into the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals. That Nuggets group lost four games total on their way to a title; two of those came against a Suns team powered by Devin Booker and Kevin Durant.

Zoom out and bring it back to franchise history. The Suns have lived the seven-seed life twice. In 1996, they went 41-41, earned seven the old-fashioned way, and ran into the San Antonio Spurs in the First Round. A 3-to-1 series loss that ended things quickly. The following season they landed at seven again at 40-42, this time facing the Seattle SuperSonics, and pushed it to five games before falling 3-to-2.

So this is the space. A spot that has produced opportunity, a spot that has carried risk, a spot that asks you to handle your business for 48 minutes and then do it again if needed. The numbers lean your way. The history gives you a blueprint. Now you have to go live it.

The opponent is still floating out there. The Clippers and the Trail Blazers are battling for the right to walk into this thing as the eight seed, and as it stands now, the numbers lean heavily one way. According to Basketball Reference’s playoff probabilities, the Clippers sit at a 77.6% chance to land that spot, while Portland lingers at 22.4%. One more meeting between them is still on the schedule.

We should have clarity soon. Tuesday, April 14, the Phoenix Suns will host at the Mortgage Matchup Center, and the stakes are clean and simple: win and move on to face the San Antonio Spurs.

Protect home court. Handle Tuesday. Close the door before anything weird has a chance to creep in, before the tension builds, before the fan base starts pacing and fills the arena with anxiety. Because no one around here needs that kind of energy.

Then again, this is Arizona sports. You already know how this story likes to behave.

The Dallas Mavericks (25-55) head back to the Lone Star state Friday night to face off against their division rivals, the San Antonio Spurs (61-19). It’s the last road game of the last road trip of the season, and it’s one that might have some real sway as far as the offseason goes. At the time of writing, Dallas finds themselves in a dead heat with the Memphis Grizzlies for the sixth best lottery odds, and only one game behind the New Orleans Pelicans. The outcome of these last couple matchups may make the difference between a Mikel Brown Jr. and an AJ Dybantsa.

The Spurs enter Friday evening without much of a concern. They’ve won four of their last five, 13 of their last 15, and they’ve mathematically locked themselves into the two-seed – most likely setting them up for a easy first-round matchup against the Los Angeles Clippers or the Phoenix Suns. Victor Wembanyama did recently suffer a left rib contusion against the Philadelphia 76ers, causing him to miss the last couple outings; however, it’s expected that he’ll suit up either against Dallas Friday night or the Denver Nuggets on Sunday, clearing the way for his first career postseason appearance.

The Mavericks, meanwhile, are about as far afield as you can get from meaningful postseason basketball. They put up a pretty decent showing against the Luka Dončić-less, Austin Reaves-less Los Angeles Lakers last Sunday, but then collapsed back to the norm against the Clippers Tuesday night and the Suns on Wednesday. There’s a subtle poetry to the fact that Dallas’ last two losses are San Antonio’s two most likely first-round matchups – almost like the basketball gods are reminding us just how far this team is from contending.

Here are three storylines to follow as the Mavericks play their last road game of the season against the San Antonio Spurs.

Mavericks role players making their case

Now that we’re arriving at the end of the regular season, it’s time to start making some decisions regarding the future of this roster. Dallas’ role players certainly know this – and they’re making their last-ditch attempts to leave an impression on the front office. C-teamer John Poulakidas has been an interesting watch in this depleted Mavericks squad, most notably putting up 23 against the Suns on Wednesday. Moussa Cissé and Marvin Bagley III also continue to make their case, with the latter of the two scoring a combined 41 over the last two outings.

On the flip side, things have looked rougher for Khris Middleton recently, and AJ Johnson’s first real outing wasn’t especially inspiring. As pointed out by Mavs Moneyball’s Joe Friedman, Johnson went a brutal 1-11 from the field against the Suns, with many of those possessions stalling out what little offensive flow the Mavericks could generate. Whether Johnson is a part of Dallas’ future remains to be seen; as far as the 2025-2026 season goes, he and the others only have a couple more in-game opportunities to show what they’ve got.

Young superstars leading the way

If there’s one thing that Dallas and San Antonio has in common right now, it’s that they’ve pushed all their chips in on their young superstars. For the Mavericks, this hasn’t quite paid dividends yet. Cooper Flagg has been absolutely transcendent, yes, filling just about every role imaginable while also posting some mind-boggling scoring figures (51 against the Orlando Magic and 45 against the Lakers, most recently). But his efforts haven’t quite translated to wins this season – most likely, this will require some very intentional work over the next couple years to fill roster gaps and develop a team that effectively complements his skillset.

San Antonio, on the other hand, is actively bearing the fruit of this exact kind of hard work. At the beginning of the season, I wrote that Victor Wembanyama’s Spurs hadn’t yet developed into the offensive powerhouse everyone was expecting. Well, I stand corrected. At the time of writing, San Antonio holds an 119.4 offensive rating for the 2025-2026 regular season, as well as a 111.1 defensive rating to boot. They’re one of the best teams in the league at both ends of the floor, due in large part to the contributions of early-career players like Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell, and Julian Champagnie. And, of course, Victor Wembanyama is leading the way, averaging around 25/11/3 and gluing the entire Spurs system together.

Dallas’ struggles down I-35

Just like the good ol’ days! It’s not much of a shock that Dallas has a bad record against the Spurs this season, given that the Mavericks have been more or less rebuilding from the ground up after the Anthony Davis trade. But it is worth noting how pronounced the disparity is. As of right now, Dallas has played San Antonio three times in the 2025-26 NBA regular season. San Antonio has taken the victory all three times, with final scores of 125-92, 135-123, and 138-125. In other words, Dallas hasn’t even gotten close – and there’s probably not much hope of changing that going into Friday night.

Maybe some day, we’ll see a return to the Mavericks-Spurs rivalry of old, with Cooper Flagg leading Dallas to a postseason victory on the way to a Finals run. For now, though, those dreams are a long way off, and we still have a lottery to think about in the meantime. 

The road ahead

After Friday night’s game, Dallas returns home for the final game of the season, facing off against a very shorthanded Chicago Bulls.

How to watch

The San Antonio Spurs host the Dallas Mavericks on Friday, April 10 at 7:00 PM CT. The game will be streamed live on MavsTV, and will also be broadcast on KFAA. As usual, fans can also tune in at 97.1FM KEGL (English) or at 99.1FM KFZO (Español).

Houston Rockets vs Philadelphia 76ers

April 9, 2026

Location: Toyota Center – Houston, TX

TV: Space City Home Network,

Radio:KBME Sports Talk 790 / KLTN 102.9 (en español)

Online: Rockets App, SCHN+

Time: 7:00pm CST

Probable Starting Lineups

Rockets: Amen Thompson, Reed Sheppard, Kevin Durant, Jabari Smith Jr., Alperen Sengun

76ers: VJ Edgecombe, Kelly Oubre Jr., Tyrese Maxey, Paul George, Andre Drummond

A spot in the Lakers’ new courtside seating section isn’t going to come cheap.

While the chairs don’t yet have an official, public price tag, a team source told The California Post on Thursday they will cost 78 percent of what the normal courtside row goes for.

Typically, those tickets for playoff matchups run anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 apiece, meaning the new spots will be somewhere in the area $15,000-$30,000 each.

The Lakers announced their latest revenue stream plans on Thursday morning, revealing the section for Los Angeles’ upcoming postseason matchups at Crypto.com Arena will be a second courtside row called “Courtside Reserve.”

The team promised the chairs will come with “premium hospitality, including in-seat food and beverage service, VIP club access and a seamless, elevated experience from the moment guests enter the arena.”

The Lakers urged those interested in purchasing the seats to fill out an online “Courtside Reserve Seats Interest Form.”

While no doubt pricey, the area has been coveted by Lakers fans for decades. Celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Denzel Washington, Will Ferrell, Justin Bieber, Kevin Hart and, of course, Jack Nicholson have become mainstays in the spots.

The Lakers’ first playoff opponent is not yet known, and it’s unclear if Luka Doncic or Austin Reaves will be available for any of the games.

Nonetheless, fans with desires of seeing the Purple and Gold from just feet away better have some deep pockets.

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Tonight the Knicks (51*-28) host the Celtics (54-25) at Madison Square Garden. It’s an Eastern Conference showdown that could be a playoff-preview. Our heroes lead the season series 2-1.

As of this writing, Boston’s injury report lists four starters, and there’s a chance that Joe Mazzulla will rest them, given that a win is not necessary to secure the second-seed. However, the last time Jayson Tatum saw the Knicks, he left the court with a ruptured Achilles tendon. Perhaps the visitors will rally ‘round the tater and treat this as revenge game?

Game time is 7:30 p.m. EST on MSG and Amazon Prime. This is your game thread. This is CelticsBlog. Please don’t post large photos, GIFs, or links to illegal streams in the thread. Enjoy yourselves. And go Knickerbockers!

* Should be one more, but NBA Cup victories prefer to live in the shadows.

Why no Steph Curry vs. LeBron James in 2025-26 season is a loss for everybody originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO – Two legends of the game were supposed to close out Chase Center on Thursday night in the Warriors’ final home game of the 2025-26 NBA regular season. A playoff game here is far from a guarantee. 

Whenever the Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers play each other, it’s less about the teams and more so about enjoying Steph Curry and LeBron James sharing the same court. Unfortunately for both players, for both teams and for both fan bases, that didn’t happen this season — not even once in the four games these two teams played against each other. 

That in itself is a loss for the entire league and the game of basketball as a whole, not knowing how many more of these games we’re going to get, if any at all.

Health comes first for the Warriors, knowing they’re locked into the No. 10 seed and a date in the NBA play-in tournament. Managing Curry’s runner’s knee that held him out for more than two months is priority No. 1. So on the first night of a back-to-back, Curry was one of eight Warriors ruled out against James and the Lakers in an eventual 119-103 loss.

James said after the game that he and Curry talked about it, and didn’t realize they hadn’t played against each other until the day of the game. Maybe Thursday was James’ last game at Chase Center. Maybe he won’t be wearing Lakers colors after this season. Maybe he’ll be hanging it up for good, or maybe the worst kept secret in the NBA of the Warriors’ wandering eyes can take him from LA to San Francisco. 

“We never know. We don’t what the future holds, and we don’t know if we’ll get the opportunity to play against each other,” James said. “It’s always a pleasure and it’s always an honor just to be in his presence, to be on the floor with him like we have in the past.”  

There still was plenty of love between Curry and James before tipoff. Curry came into the arena wearing a pair of Nike LeBron 10 IDs from 2013 as part of his sneaker free agency. James was all smiles when he caught a glimpse of Curry’s kicks before the game. 

“He got those things from the vault,” James said. “For real, for real. I remember him wearing those. … I’m not sure if he had an extra pair or if those were the actual ones, but he went to the vault for those.”

Shoes were the closest thing between them, and their only connection for the duration of the season.

The Warriors and Lakers played each other in the regular-season opener. Curry scored 23 points, and James missed the game because of sciatica. The two teams then played each other twice during Curry’s absence from runner’s knee, with James recording a 20-point, 10-assist double-double the first game and 22 points and nine assists the second.

In what was the last chance for these two to play each other this season, barring a playoff surprise, Curry watched from the sidelines as James defied Father Time against the Warriors’ JV squad, again flirting with a triple-double and finishing with 26 points, eight rebounds and 11 assists.

Now that the season series for the Warriors and Lakers is over, the NBA went an entire season without fans watching Curry and James battle for basketball supremacy for the first time in six years. 

“They’ve been the faces of the league for a long, long time and it’s been fun to watch as a fan,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said during his pregame press conference. “It’s been fun to be a part of it the last couple of years.”

Adam Silver’s NBA has been run by two players whose first names are even more recognizable than their last: Steph and LeBron. This is their league, their era. But for how much longer is the real question. 

The first full season Silver took over for David Stern as the league’s commissioner was the first year Curry and James played each other in the NBA Finals, starting a stretch of four straight campaigns of them meeting on the grand stage to crown a champion.

Respect has been earned and admired by Curry and James. An all-time rivalry comes with the territory of greatness. 

“I think rivalries in general are defined by playoff matchups,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “That’s kind of the history of the way we look at Wilt [Chamberlain] vs. Bill Russell, Bird-Magic. I think they had three Finals confrontations. What would some of the other ones be? I don’t know. Steph and LeBron has to be up there.” 

If playoff matchups define rivalries, Curry and James fit the criteria. And Curry has the upper hand, beating James in three of the four Finals they’ve faced one another, as well as winning 17 of the 28 playoff games between them. James has him beat in the regular season, with 14 wins on his side and 13 for Curry. 

For the past 12 seasons, Kerr has coached Curry’s Warriors and competed against James on the Lakers and Cleveland Cavaliers. He has had the opportunity to be part of one of basketball’s great modern rivalries, and was the man on the sidelines as they came together on Team USA two summers ago at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. 

As well as anybody from a leadership standpoint, Kerr has seen the full scope of their greatness. He gets it, he respects it and he’ll always appreciate it. 

“It’s just the love for the game,” Kerr said. “The love for the competition, the process, the work. I think all great players share an obsession with the game itself. It’s a love for the game. It’s an obsession with getting better, with competing. All the guys who I have either played with or coached, you can just see – I mean, it means everything to them. 

“When you combine that with incredible talent, which both guys have – Steph has the greatest hand eye coordination of anybody on earth, and LeBron is probably the greatest athlete, physical specimen, that I’ve ever seen. You get those qualities combined and this is the result. There’s a reason they’re both still going. They love it, and they’re obsessed with it.” 

LeBron is 41 and will be an unrestricted free agent after the season. Steph is 38 and has one more year on his current contract. The ball, as it always has been, is in their court. 

While the Warriors’ home finale was a loss on the scoreboard and even bigger L for basketball, the two faces that have defined a generation of greatness have given the NBA too many wins to count, and one can’t fathom the memories ever being replicated.

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