Play-In Madness and Things We Care About in the First Round

The Mismatch

The Ringer

Sports

4.7 • 5.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2026

⏱️ 83 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Verno and Jacoby return to react to the opening games of the play-in tournament and preview the final games on Friday. Then, they discuss the things they care about heading into the opening round of the NBA playoffs. Welcome to The Mismatch! (0:30) Play-in tournament recap (2:03) Hornets-Heat: The game was wildly entertaining (7:06) Magic-76ers: Magic fans would rather watch Hornets-Pistons (11:29) Warriors-Clippers: Vintage masterpiece by Steph and Green (24:15) Blazers-Suns: Devin Booker will be front and center vs. the Warriors (28:48) Things we care about going into the playoffs (29:09) Things we care about: Wings vs. bigs in the Cavs-Toronto matchup (32:34) Things we care about: What if the Cavs lose? (38:11) Things we care about: Last run for this iteration of the Wolves (43:05) Things we care about: Nuggets must close quick (47:48) Things we care about: Can the Knicks run with the Hawks? (49:43) Things we care about: The Knicks' transition defense (53:28) Things we care about: Mitchell Robinson’s free throw shooting (1:00:06) Things we care about: Can the Celtics' regular-season success carry into the playoffs? (1:03:19) Things we care about: Is effort the Moneyball of the NBA? (1:06:08) Things we care about: Who doesn’t love Tyrese Maxey? (1:12:29) Things we care about: Small-market energy (1:16:05) Things we care about: Battle scars The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Leave us a message on our Mismatch voicemail line! (323) 389-5091 Hosts: Chris Vernon and David Jacoby Producers: Stefan Anderson and Jeff Shearin Social: Keith Fujimoto Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the mismatch. I'm Chris Vernon.
0:19.1	And joining me, see does every week from The Ringer.com is Dave Jacoby.
0:22.2	Jacobi!
0:23.8	Chris Vernon, Matthews have 20 seconds to start this.
0:28.4	I'm here.
0:30.7	I have a confession.
0:32.4	A couple of things I want to address.
0:33.7	Number one, on this show, the mismatch, Chris Vernon, David Jacobi,
0:39.0	I once had a take that I loathed the plane. And I was like, this is unnecessary. The ninth and
0:47.0	10th teams do not deserve to be in this tournament. I did this whole thing. And my God,
0:53.5	watching basketball, the last two nights, has completely reinvigorated my love of the NBA.
1:02.1	The end of the regular season was tough.
1:04.6	But watching these games and watching the effort, the execution, the coaching, just the energy, the crowd,
1:13.6	watching it be this way, just completely lit the flame again for me to a million percent.
1:22.6	All right.
1:23.5	First of all, you're very brave.
1:29.4	You're very brave for doing that, admitting you were wrong about the play-in.
1:35.5	It is truly remarkable that we had four play-in games over the course of the last two nights,
1:41.9	and we didn't catch one dud amongst them. Like all four of the last two nights. And we didn't catch one dud.
1:45.0	Not a single one. Like all four of the games were wildly entertaining for their own reasons.
1:52.4	The two last night were like headed down Dudd Highway and it just exigent.
1:57.1	You know what I mean?
	...

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