BATON ROUGE – Four former LSU Tigers begin play this week in the 2026 NBA Playoffs.

Trendon Watford and the Philadelphia 76ers will face the Orlando Magic at 6:30 p.m. CT Wednesday in the Play-in Tournament with the winner earning the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. The loser will play again on Friday in an attempt to earn the eighth seed in the playoffs.

Philadelphia would need to win one-of-the-two games to advance to face either the No. 1 seed Detroit or the East’s second seed, Boston.

Tari Eason of Houston, Naz Reid of Minnesota and Garrett Temple of Toronto will see their teams start in the best of seven first round which begins on the weekend.

Houston as the five seed in the West will face Los Angeles on Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. CT in the first game of that series, while Minnesota (the W6 seed) will open on Saturday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. at Denver.

Toronto, a five seed in the East, also opens on Saturday against the East 4 seed in Cleveland at Noon.

Watford is in his first year with the 76ers and his fifth season in the league. He played 16.3 minutes a game in 53 total games, averaging 6.5 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.5 assists. He played 59 career games in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons for the Tigers averaging 13.6 points and 7.2 rebounds in 2020 and 16.3 points and 7.4 rebounds in 2021.

Eason was one of the early transfer candidates at LSU, coming to Baton Rouge for the 2021-22 season after his freshman campaign at Cincinnati. He earned SEC Sixth Man of the Year honors, averaging 16.9 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.9 steals per game while shooting 52.1 percent from the field.

He is in his fourth NBA season, playing 60 games, averaging 25.8 minutes a game. He scored at a 10.5 points per game clip with 6.3 rebounds and 1.5 assists for the Rockets.

Reid was part of the SEC Championship and Sweet 16 team in 2019 at LSU and has become a Minnesota fan favorite in his seven years there. He played in 77 games this season, averaging 13.5 points, 6.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists per contest. In his 2018-19 college season at LSU, Reid averaged 13.6 points and 7.2 rebounds.

Temple is the veteran of LSU players in his 16th year in the league. He concluded the regular season with his 793rd career appearance on April 12, which moved him past Bob Pettit (792) into second place among LSU players in NBA appearances behind only Shaquille O’Neal’s 1,207 NBA games played.

Temple played in 134 games for the Tigers, helping LSU to the NCAA Final Four in 2006 and winning his second SEC title with the team in 2009.

The entire play-in tournament, which begins Tuesday evening, will be streamed on Prime Video as will the afternoon games on Saturday in the first round. The Houston-Los Angeles opening game of the first round Saturday night will be broadcast over-the-air on ABC Sports.