SLICES: What the heck is the NBA’s “play-in tournament?”

Scott Sigler Slices

Empty Set Entertainment

Fiction, Arts, Science Fiction

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2026

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The NBA Play-In Tournament begins today, April 14, 2026. Scott and ARealGirl Herself explain this confusing event that has added even more drama to the already dramatic NBA playoffs. And hey, what is “tanking?” Why are NBA franchises accused of intentionally sabotaging their seasons? We strive to explain! And we share an awesome movie that combines basketball, playoffs, and tanking. Slices is created by Scott Sigler and A B Kovacs Produced by Steve Riekeberg Production Assistance by Allie Press Copyright 2026 by Empty Set Entertainment Play-in with the GoDaddy Promo Code CJCFOSSIG, no matter what seed you are. It saves 99% off the cost of a new dot-com registration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Scott Sigler Slices. I am Scott Sigler, a sci-fi horror and sports fiction author.
0:05.6	And I am A. B. Sigler, audiobook narrator, publisher at M.T. Set Entertainment, where we make
0:10.2	cool things for cool people. This episode is a slice of the NBA, where we dive into the chaos machine
0:18.1	that is the NBA play-in tournament.
0:21.3	That's right.
0:24.2	Total chaos because it's not the playoffs yet.
0:28.3	It's the pre-fight before the fight or the pre-playoffs.
0:28.9	Yeah. Okay.
0:29.4	Yeah.
0:30.1	I, I, okay, this is so confusing for me.
0:33.0	I'm translating what you, I think you just said, which is teams enter and dreams leave. Anybody can go
0:40.9	into this in the in the play in tourney because the season wrapped on April 12th, the regular
0:47.3	season for the NBA wrapped on April 12th. The playoffs officially begin April 18th, but before that,
0:54.1	we've got the play in tournament from the 14th through the 17th.
0:58.4	Four days of elimination basketball? Is that quite right?
1:02.7	I admit, I didn't know what the play in turnie was at all.
1:05.8	It's a tournament that decides the final two playoff seeds in each conference.
1:09.4	Each conference, eight teams make the playoffs. And the final two playoff seeds in each conference. Each conference, eight teams make the playoffs,
1:12.5	and the last two teams in each conference are decided by this playoff tournament.
1:19.1	Okay, so seeds, then that's seven and eight are up for grabs.
1:23.8	Yes, that is correct.
1:24.9	Okay.
	...

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