Glancing At Potential First Round Playoff Opponents for the Cleveland Cavaliers

Four teams for two spots at the bottom of the Eastern Conference playoff picture.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

On Wednesday morning the NBA announced the schedule for the Play-In Tournament following this regular season. If you’re new to this, the way it works is the teams that finish between seventh and 10th in each conference will fight for the final two playoff spots.

The two teams that finish seventh and eighth play against each other. The winner of that game is awarded the No. 7 seed in the conference. The loser of that game will play against the winner of a game between the teams that finish ninth and 10th. The winner of that third game is the No. 8 seed and the opponent of the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round.

As of this morning, the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat are locked in to spots in the play-in, while the Orlando Magic and Atlanta Hawks are very¹ likely to find themselves in the do-or-die games later this month.

That means the team the Cavs play in the first round will come from that group.

None of the four teams that could be the No. 8 seed should be viewed as any sort of threat to the Cavs, but they present different challenges to Cleveland in the early portion of the playoffs.

This isn’t a ranking of the four teams, rather just how they are currently situated in the standings