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\u201cMy first year as a head coach, we won 43 games and we were the fifth seed,\u201d Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. \u201cWe were the 10th seed this year with 43.\u201d<\/p>\n
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If playoff teams only counted … <\/p>\n
If the playoff teams were their own 16-team league, counting only their games against one another in the standings, the top overall seed in these playoffs would be Detroit.<\/p>\n
The Pistons went 30-12 against the other playoff clubs, just ahead of Oklahoma City (31-14) and San Antonio (29-14).<\/p>\n
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The Thunder had the biggest point differential in games against other playoff teams (8.4 per game), while the Thunder and the Spurs both had the most double-digit wins (18 apiece).<\/p>\n
The money matters<\/p>\n
The playoff pool for this season is the most in NBA history, with $35,740,226 to be divided up between the 16 teams.<\/p>\n
As the team with the NBA\u2019s best record, the Oklahoma City Thunder are already assured $2,161,408 from that pool. If the Thunder win the NBA title, they will claim more than one-third of the pool \u2014 $12,805,503.<\/p>\n
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Teams get shares for finishing with a top-six record in their conference, plus for making the playoffs and the size of the shares increase for advancing to later rounds. There\u2019s about a $5 million difference between winning and losing the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n
Hawks hit 50<\/p>\n
Atlanta is in the playoffs for the 50th time, the Hawks becoming the fourth franchise to hit that total.<\/p>\n
The other three? The Los Angeles Lakers (66), Boston (63) and Philadelphia (55).<\/p>\n
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It\u2019ll be at least another four years before the 50-playoff-aappearance club grows. New York has made 46 appearances, including this year\u2019s.<\/p>\n
It’s 17 and counting for James Harden<\/p>\n
James Harden has yet to win an NBA championship. But at least he gets into the playoffs \u2014 every single year.<\/p>\n
That’s right: 17 years in the league, 17 playoff trips for Harden.<\/p>\n
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He and the Cleveland Cavaliers will take on the Toronto Raptors in Round 1 of the Eastern Conference playoffs. The Cavs will be the sixth team that Harden appears with in the postseason, after stints with Oklahoma City, Houston, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, the Los Angeles Clippers and now Cleveland.<\/p>\n
Harden enters the series with the Raptors 14th on the league’s career playoff scoring list, two points behind No. 13 Larry Bird. He’s 59 points behind No. 12 Dwyane Wade, and if the Cavs make any sort of deep run would figure to have a chance to reach the top 10 in playoff scoring sometime this spring.<\/p>\n
Milestones await<\/p>\n
Some stat milestones that could await in these playoffs:<\/p>\n
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\u2014 Houston’s Kevin Durant is 15 points shy of 5,000 for his playoff career. He’ll be the seventh player to hit that number.<\/p>\n
\u2014 The Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James \u2014 who already holds league records for playoff games, games won, games lost, points scored, field goals made, field goals attempted and steals, among other things \u2014 needs seven more steals to get to 500. Nobody else even has 400.<\/p>\n
\u2014 If New York gets to the Eastern Conference finals, Mike Brown (who has 50 playoff wins) would pass Tyronn Lue (57) and move into the top 20 all-time for coaching playoff victories.<\/p>\n
Nuggets playing? Take the over. Celtics? Take the under.<\/p>\n
When the Denver Nuggets play, you’re going to see a lot of points.<\/p>\n
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How many points? Well, probably more than what oddsmakers tell you to expect.<\/p>\n
Denver’s games went over the Vegas over-under total \u2014 the number of total points expected in the game from both teams \u2014 63.4% of the time this season. That’s the second-highest rate in the last 12 seasons, topped only by Indiana’s games going over the total 65.3% of the time in the 2020-21 season.<\/p>\n
Other betting nuggets from this season:<\/p>\n
\u2014 Among the 16 playoff teams, Boston (59.8%) covered more often than any other team, followed by San Antonio (57.3%). Charlotte covered in 61% of its games but missed the playoffs.<\/p>\n
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\u2014 Speaking of the Celtics, only 36.6% of their games went over the total. That’s the lowest rate in the NBA in at least 12 years.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Oklahoma City was favored in 78 of its 82 games, as would probably be expected.<\/p>\n
A Game 1, in Detroit<\/p>\n
It’s been a long time since Pistons fans can say this: Game 1 is at home.<\/p>\n
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The opener of the Detroit-Orlando series on Sunday will be the first time the Pistons open any playoff series on their home floor since 2008 \u2014 an Eastern Conference semifinal matchup, also against the Magic.<\/p>\n
Detroit wound up winning in five games before falling to Boston in that season’s East finals.<\/p>\n
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AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker (1) gets fouled by Portland Trail Blazers forward Deni Avdija (8) during the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,57554,5145,1173,7216,34409,7896,15566,590,288644,1025,146000,146002,145996,298524,85,74738],"class_list":{"0":"post-615024","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-erik-spoelstra","11":"tag-houston","12":"tag-james-harden","13":"tag-kevin-durant","14":"tag-larry-bird","15":"tag-lebron-james","16":"tag-mike-brown","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-nba-playoffs-2026","19":"tag-new-york","20":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","21":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","22":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","23":"tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-tyronn-lue"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}