Steve Kerr, the basketball fan, raves about the play-in tournament and the drama that it creates down the stretch of the NBA’s regular season and leading into the official start of the playoffs.
Kerr, the basketball coach, doesn’t like it so much.
“I haven’t loved it because we’ve been on the wrong end of it,” said Kerr, the Golden State Warriors’ coach. “We’re 0-3 in these play-in games. And so, you finish in the top eight, you feel like you should be in the playoffs. On the other hand, it’s been great for the league. If you’re eighth and-or seventh, well, you had 82 games to do better — and you didn’t do better.”
This is where the Warriors — and seven other teams — now find themselves. They’re in the postseason. They’re not in the playoffs. And six games this week all will have either a playoff berth, season elimination, or both on the line.
The fifth full season of the NBA’s play-in tournament starts Tuesday: No. 7 Orlando hosts No. 8 Atlanta in the Eastern Conference, and No. 7 Golden State hosts No. 8 Memphis in the Western Conference. The winners of those games make the playoffs, with the Magic-Hawks winner earning the chance to play Boston and the Warriors-Grizzlies winner off to play Houston.