The Golden State Warriors, who last summer won the NBA championship for the fourth time in eight years, are in the playoffs. LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers are heading to the play-in tournament. And the Minnesota Timberwolves lost Rudy Gobert to a fight with a teammate, then won a fight to improve their playoff hopes.
The final day of the regular season was predictably wild — with tons of unpredictable elements as well.
It took until the 1,230th and last game of the year went final, but the bracket for the playoffs and play-in bracket in the Western Conference are finally set, highlighted by the Los Angeles Clippers and the Warriors getting a few days off knowing that they're officially in the postseason.
The Clippers beat the Phoenix Suns to clinch the No. 5 seed and a first-round matchup with the same team. The Warriors had their highest-scoring game in almost 33 years, routing the Portland Trail Blazers 157-101 — Golden State led by as many as 59 in that game, the largest lead by any team all season — to clinch the No. 6 seed. That gives the Warriors an automatic berth in the playoffs and a first-round matchup with the Sacramento Kings, who are in the playoffs for the first time since 2006.
James and the No. 7 — for now — Lakers will get two chances to get into the playoffs, starting with Tuesday's play-in game against the No. 8 Timberwolves. If the Lakers lose that game, they'll get another chance Friday against the winner of Wednesday's game between the No. 9 New Orleans Pelicans and the No. 10 Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Lakers-Timberwolves winner gets the No. 2 Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs; the winner of Friday's play-in game will start the playoffs next Sunday against the No. 1 Denver Nuggets.
No team in the West has had a better record since the NBA All-Star break than the Lakers, who went 16-7 down the stretch, even with James sidelined for about half of that run by injury.
Minnesota locked up the No. 8 seed (and two chances at the playoffs) by holding off New Orleans, 113-108.
It was the last game to finish in the regular season, though it ended early for Gobert. He threw a punch at Kyle Anderson — his teammate — during a first-half timeout and didn't return to the game, and Minnesota also lost Jaden McDaniels to a right hand injury after he appeared to punch a wall.
"We made the decision to send Rudy Gobert home after the incident in the second quarter," Timberwolves president Tim Connelly said in a statement released after the game. "His behavior on the bench was unacceptable and we will continue handling the situation internally."
If the Timberwolves lost that game, they would have been the No. 9 seed. There were 16 possible ways the fifth through ninth seeds on the West bracket could have gone on Sunday, and the Pelicans had a shot to finish as high as No. 5. Instead, they wound up ninth.
The Eastern Conference postseason matchups were all set before Sunday. The No. 7 Miami Heat play the No. 8 Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday, and the No. 9 Toronto Raptors play the No. 10 Chicago Bulls on Wednesday. The Heat-Hawks winner advances to play the No. 2 Boston Celtics in the first round; the Raptors-Bulls winner will play the Heat-Hawks loser on Friday for the chance to play the No. 1 Milwaukee Bucks in the opening round.
In the playoffs' other first-round matchups for the East, the No. 3 Philadelphia 76ers will play the No. 6 Brooklyn Nets, and the No. 4 Cleveland Cavaliers will meet the No. 5 New York Knicks.
In individual statistical races, there were two repeat winners this season: 76ers center Joel Embiid is now a back-to-back scoring champion, and Grizzlies star Jaren Jackson Jr. won the blocks race for the second consecutive year, averaging 3.0 per game this time.
Embiid finished with an average of 33.1 points per game, with the Dallas Mavericks' Luka Doncic (32.4) second and the Portland Trail Blazers' Damian Lillard (32.2) third. This season was the first in NBA history when three players averaged at least 32 points per game.
Meanwhile, Philadelphia's James Harden reclaimed the assists title, averaging 10.7 per game; he also led the league in 2016-17, when he was with the Houston Rockets.
Sacramento's Domantas Sabonis led the league in rebounds per game (12.3), while Toronto's O.G. Anunoby edged Miami's Jimmy Butler for the steals title in a very close race. Anunoby averaged 1.91, while Butler averaged 1.83.
Golden State's Klay Thompson had the most 3-pointers by a player this season, getting to 301 by making six on Sunday.
He is only the third player to make 300 in a season. Warriors teammate Stephen Curry has done it four times, and Harden did it in 2018-19.