The second day of the Play-In Tournament is over. The big winners are the Golden State Warriors, who avoided elimination (but still need to beat the Phoenix Suns on Friday to make the playoffs), and the Philadelphia 76ers, who get to play a seven-game series against the Boston Celtics.Wait, actually, that doesn’t sound like a lot of fun for the Sixers. But hey, they did what they were supposed to do against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday, and they earned themselves the No. 7 seed in the East. Given that Joel Embiid appeared in only 38 regular-season games and Paul George appeared in only 37, that is an accomplishment.The Warriors, though. My goodness. They trailed by 13 points with less than 10 minutes remaining, then went on a 39-19 run and escaped Intuit Dome with a 126-121 win against the Los Angeles Clippers. This was absolutely vintage stuff.
2026 NBA playoff bracket: Matchups, schedule as Warriors stay alive, 76ers advance to face Celtics
Brad Botkin
To recap: The winners were Golden State and Philadelphia. The losers were the Clippers and Magic. But let’s get a little more specific than that, shall we? Here are the Wednesday’s winners and losers:
Winners: Age, guile, the heart of a champion, etc. Had the Warriors merely given the Clippers a competitive game and lost by 5-15 points, no one in their right mind would have crushed them for it. Stephen Curry hasn’t reached the 30-minute mark in an NBA game since January, and he’s barely played with Kristaps Porziņģis. There is no shame in losing to a well-balanced team led by Kawhi Leonard — a top-five player in the regular season! — and Darius Garland.Before the game, though, Golden State coach Steve Kerr described the play-in as “an opportunity we might not ever get again.” And boy, did the old dudes play like it.Al Horford, who turns 40 in June, made all four 3s that he attempted during the Warriors’ furious fourth-quarter comeback. Curry, 38, scored 11 of his 35 points in the fourth, too, including a classic stepback 3 over…
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2026-04-16 07:51:04
