The Oklahoma City Thunder and the Cleveland Cavaliers are the top seeds in the NBA playoffs, which comes with some perks.
They’ll have home-court advantage for at least three rounds and, presumably, an easier path than others to advancing.
It also comes with a challenge: They’ll have just one full day to really prepare for Game 1 of their respective first-round series.
Some teams will have a full week to prepare for their first playoff foe. Some teams get four or five days. Given the way the play-in tournament is structured, the Thunder and Cavaliers won’t know their foes until late Friday night — then will open against those opponents on Sunday, with only one practice day to lock in on a game plan.
“It’s tough. It’s interesting,” said Milwaukee Bucks coach Doc Rivers, who has been an NBA head coach since 1999 and has spent time with four other franchises. “There were years where I had that issue, and it’s definitely more challenging.”
The exact same scenario didn’t hold the Thunder back a year ago. The New Orleans Pelicans won the Western Conference’s elimination play-in game for the No. 8 seed on a Friday, then started a first-round playoff series Sunday at top-seeded Oklahoma City. The Thunder squeaked out a win, then went on to sweep the matchup with a couple of blowouts in there.
And just like last year, the Thunder are spending these extra days working on themselves.
“It’s a unique situation to have this much time in between games and to not know your opponent,” Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault said. “Now, our opponent won’t be able to prepare; we’ll both have the same amount of time to prepare. We both have Saturday, and then we play Sunday. So you’re in no disadvantage, but we definitely learned from last year on how to manage the week.”
The Cavaliers won’t present any information on opposing personnel to their players until after the opponent is locked in for the Eastern Conference’s first round. Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson did get one piece of information very late Tuesday night, learning that his team’s Game 1 will be at 7 p.m. on Sunday.
It could have been as early as 1 p.m., depending on what the NBA and its broadcast partners wanted, and to Atkinson, those few extra hours can make a difference.
“We’ll have more time to maybe dive into personnel a little more,” Atkinson said.
The Cavs have had an assistant coach assigned to each specific team all season, so work is being done on all three of their possible first-round opponents. Atkinson won’t start thinking about possible matchups until later this week.
“I think there is an organization to it, a real organization,” Atkinson said. “And it’s multifaceted. … We have things we’ve been working on, things we think will translate to the playoffs.”
There are four matchups that have set since the end of the regular season and will open Saturday: the fourth-seeded Indiana Pacers against the No. 5 Milwaukee Bucks as well as the No. 3 New York Knicks against the No. 6 Detroit Pistons in the East, along with the No. 4 Denver Nuggets against the No. 5 Los Angeles Clippers as well as the No. 3 Los Angeles Lakers against the No. 6 Minnesota Timberwolves in the West. Those teams will have had almost a full week to get ready for the first round.
The No. 2 seeds in each conference learned their opponents Tuesday night, when the Orlando Magic locked in at No. 7 for the East and earned the right to play the Boston Celtics, while the Golden State Warriors won their way into the West’s No. 7 spot and a playoff meeting with the Houston Rockets.
Had the Magic or the Warriors lost Tuesday, they would have had to play elimination games Friday. Winning to open the play-in tournament allowed both teams a chance to take a little bit of time to exhale.
“It took 83 games, but we’re right where we want to be, which is back in the playoffs and we’ve got a chance,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “But maybe most importantly, we get the time to rest and prepare, because these guys need that desperately right now.”
Oklahoma City will play either the Dallas Mavericks or the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round, when Cleveland will play either the Miami Heat or the Atlanta Hawks. The Mavericks beat the Sacramento Kings and the Heat beat the Chicago Bulls in elimination games Wednesday night.
Sometime late Friday night, the Thunder and the Cavaliers will finally know exactly who it is.
Neither club seemed overly worked up about the uncertainty they’re dealing with this week. And it hasn’t been much of a problem in the past, either: Since 2021, when this version of the play-in tournament began, No. 1 seeds are 6-2 in playoff openers against No. 8 seeds, and they have gone on to win that opening series seven of eight times — the exception being when Miami upset Milwaukee in 2023.
“It’s the first round,” Cleveland forward Tristan Thompson said. “No disrespect to those teams, but we’re supposed to win that series.”