With this year’s playoff and play-in bracket, the final NBA playoff bracket and seedings for 17 teams came down to the final day of the season

With all the postseason jockeying over with, the NBA playoff picture is now crystal clear. The Utah Jazz are the #1 seed in the West while the the Golden State Warriors and Washington Wizards solidifying their position as the #8 seeds in their conference and some other shuffling. By securing the eight seeds in the play-in tournament, the Wizards and Warriors avoid a sudden death scenario that the #9 and #10 seeds face.

The defending champion Los Angeles Lakers fell to the #7 seed and their odds and road to repeating as NBA champions became much more difficult according to NonGamStopBets companies, but we wouldn’t recommend betting against LeBron James… even if he’s set to face out-of-this-world Steph Curry.

How the NBA’s Play-In bracket works

Wait, the eight seeds aren’t in the playoffs? That’s right, the NBA’s play-in tournament is in their second postseason now and the 7-10 seeds need to earn their spot.

We’ll try to give you a simple explainer without getting too deep into the weeds. Though the NBA Playoff play-in tournament existed last season, it differs slightly this season. As opposed to other seasons where there were a solid 16 playoff teams, the playoff field is expanded to 10 teams in both conferences.

Now, only the top six seeds from each conference are officially in the playoffs with the remaining four teams playing a mini-tourney not unlike the NCAA’s First Four play-in games in the sense that the 8 teams have to earn their way into the larger NBA playoff bracket.

Okay stick with us here. The #7 and #8 seeds have earned the privilege of double-elimination while the #9 and #10 seeds are in sudden death mode (lose and their out). So the winner in their mini-brackets move on; the winner of the 7/8 seed game locks up the #7 seed in the larger official bracket and the 9/10 winner takes on the loser of the 7/8 seed. The winner of that second game locks up the #8 seed in their conference while the loser of that game is eliminated.

Don’t get it?  Then read on about the play-in tournament by clicking through to NBA.com’s full explainer and FAQ.

Printable 2020-21 NBA Play-In Bracket

I don’t know about you but I’m a proponent for the play in tournament even though LeBron James isn’t much of a fan (to say the least). At the end of the day, the play-in tournament makes the end of the season much more interesting.

On a typical NBA season, the last couple weeks are mostly anticlimactic as most teams are locked into the playoffs or not, with a handful of games that might determine seeding or homecourt advantage. With the new play-in tournament, there’s so much more meaningful.

In order to get one of the playoff play-in brackets above so you can follow this season’s NBA postseason, you can do so at interbasket. For the first-round playoff bracket without the border, please go here to print that out. The play-in tournament bracket with border in pdf, you can click here to download and print it out. For the larger 16-team NBA playoff bracket, we have that covered too.