Play-in Previews, Plus Surprises and Disappointments from This Season

The Mismatch

The Ringer

Sports

4.7 • 5.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2026

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Verno and Jacoby return to react to the final weekend of the NBA regular season, take a look at the 2026 Play-in Tournament, and break down the playoff matchups. Then, they give their biggest surprises and disappointments from the regular season. Welcome to The Mismatch! 01:45 Previewing the Play-in Tournament 02:28 Heat-Hornets: Heat are a tough out, Hornets are young 8:40 Blazers-Suns: Next round vs. Spurs favors the Trail Blazers 14:47 Magic-76ers: Will this be a revenge game for Philly? 18:35 Warriors-Clippers: Warriors stumbling into matchup 25:12 Knicks-Hawks: Initial thoughts for the matchup 29:06 Rockets-Lakers: Luka has to be available to beat the Rockets 34:18 Wolves-Nuggets: The underdog has been a problem for Denver in the past 39:35 Verno’s Surprises: The Spurs' huge leap from the lottery 43:10 Jacoby’s Surprises: How much better the Celtics were going into the season 46:54 Verno’s Disappointments: How reckless tanking has become in the NBA 48:39 Jacoby’s Disappointments: The NBA turning into a law firm 51:56 Verno’s Surprises: The statistical greatness of Nikola Jokić 57:55 Jacoby’s Surprises: 2025 draft class was really impactful 59:32 Verno’s Disappointments: Doc Rivers and the disaster of the Bucks 1:01:37 Jacoby’s Disappointments: NBC selling us Michael Jordan and not delivering 1:03:45 Verno’s Surprises: The Clippers recovering from their bad start 1:06:07 Jacoby’s Surprises: Clippers sending CP3 into retirement 1:13:34 Jacoby’s Disappointments: Chauncey Billups in a federal indictment The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. (only needed when baked-in FanDuel ad read is in episode) 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 Farnan.
0:19.4	And join me to Siddaz every week from the wringer.com is Dave Jacoby.
0:22.2	Jocobie.
0:23.9	Regular season is over, Chris.
0:26.0	It's over.
0:26.9	With a whimper.
0:28.2	With a whimper.
0:30.6	I'm trying to be in a good mood.
0:32.3	So let's not talk about what happened over the weekend in the National Basketball Association.
0:35.7	Let's keep our eyes forward. You and I were texting over the weekend in the National Basketball Association. Let's keep our eyes forward.
0:38.8	You and I were texting over the weekend and you sent me. We even ended the show last Thursday night
0:46.8	by talking about how it was absolutely impossible, though these teams only had two games left,
0:56.9	that us trying to figure out where these teams would land in the standings and the possible play in and the tiebreakers, we just gave up.
1:04.2	And then there was one game left just to give people.
1:07.6	I still couldn't figure it out.
1:16.8	I text you back and I said, just tell me who's playing when.
1:19.9	Well, it's also, it wasn't just there was one game left.
1:22.4	It's like who's trying to win, who's not trying to win.
1:22.8	Right. And some of the trying to win teams lost.
1:27.0	Yeah. And then some of the ones you would have thought would have really wanted to win.
1:32.7	Orlando.
1:34.1	San Antonio?
	...

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