NBA playoffs predictions and play-in tournament schedule live updates: Bracket, odds, draft lottery and stats

Oddly, nobody among Denver, Oklahoma City and Minnesota — who have identical 56-25 records — has complete control in their quest to earn the West's the top seed.

Oklahoma City is the top seed if everyone wins or if everyone loses. In both scenarios, Minnesota would be second and Denver third.

Denver is the top seed if it wins and the other two teams lose, in which case Minnesota would be second and Oklahoma City third.

Minnesota is the top seed if they win and Denver loses, in which case Oklahoma City would be second.

Oklahoma City is the top seed if they win and Minnesota loses.

Denver would move up to second if it wins and one of the other two teams lose. In any scenario where only one of the three teams lose, that team will end up the third seed.

This doesn't quite cover every scenario for the 5-8 seeds in the East postseason, but here's the cliff notes:

If everybody loses or if everybody wins: Orlando is fifth, Indiana sixth, Philadelphia seventh, and Miami eighth.

If Orlando wins, they are the No. 5 seed unless Indiana loses and Philadelphia wins, in which case the Magic are the No. 6 seed.

If Orlando loses and Miami wins: Orlando will be the No. 8 seed unless Indiana also loses, in which case the Magic will be seventh.

If Indiana wins: They will be the sixth seed unless Orlando loses, in which case the Pacers would move up to fifth.

If Philadelphia wins: They will be no worse than the seventh seed. If Indiana loses, the 76ers move up to fifth. If Indiana wins and Orlando loses, the 76ers move up to sixth.

If Miami loses: They are the No. 8 seed.

If Miami wins and Orlando wins: Miami is the No. 8 seed.

If Miami wins and Orlando loses: Miami is the Southeast Division champion and will be seeded ahead of Orlando. If that happens and one of Indiana or Philadelphia also loses, Miami moves up to sixth. If that happens and both those teams lose, Miami moves up to fifth. Otherwise, Miami would be seventh.

If Milwaukee wins, the Bucks are the No. 2 seed, the Knicks are the No. 3 seed and Cleveland is the No. 4 seed

If Milwaukee loses and New York wins and Cleveland loses, New York is the No. 2 seed, Milwaukee is third and Cleveland is fourth.

If Milwaukee loses and Cleveland and New York both win, New York is the No. 2 seed, Cleveland is the third and Milwaukee is fourth.

If Milwaukee loses and New York and Cleveland both lose, Milwaukee is the No. 2 seed, New York is third and Cleveland is fourth.

And If Milwaukee and New York lose and Cleveland wins, Cleveland takes over the second seed, Milwaukee is third, and New York is fourth.

After holding a 16-point lead with 7:49 left in the third quarter, the Sacramento Kings were outscored 54-37 for the remainder of the game to lose 108-107 to the Phoenix Suns on Friday night. The Kings have now dropped five of their last six and currently own the ninth seed in the Western Conference with a 45-36 record. The Golden State Warriors — who lost to the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday — also have a 45-36 record, but Sacramento owns the tiebreaker over them due to a better divisional record.

Kevin Durant scored a game-high 28 points on 11-of-20 shooting. Domantas Sabonis paced the Kings with a team-high 25 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists. De'Aaron Fox had a tough shooting night, finishing with 23 points, six assists, five rebounds and four steals.

The Suns can still jump to sixth in the conference if they win Sunday and the Pelicans lose, and can't drop below seventh if they remain in the Play-In Tournament. As long as Sacramento wins its final regular-season game Sunday against the Portland Trail Blazers, whose 21-60 record is the worst in the West, it'll at worst secure the ninth seed and a home game against the Warriors in the 9-10 matchup Play-In. If the Los Angeles Lakers lose to the Pelicans on Sunday, the Kings will jump to the eighth spot since they own the tiebreaker over the Lakers as well.

The Phoenix Suns just pulled out a 108-107 win in Sacramento. That means the Pelicans won't be able to clinch the No. 6 seed in the West until Sunday.

They get No. 6 with either a win over the Lakers or a loss by the Suns on Sunday at Minnesota.

Steve Kerr on whether the Warriors (now very likely buried in the 9 vs. 10 side of the Play-In Tournament) could rest guys on Sunday vs. the Utah Jazz:

"Oh, hell yeah. ... I'm much more interested in our ability to be ready for next week."

The Pelicans just completed a 114-109 victory in a road back-to-back against Golden State. If Phoenix loses tonight in Sacramento, New Orleans would clinch the sixth seed in the Western Conference.

This team just keeps proving over and over again how mentally tough they are. They got another historic shooting night for CJ McCollum, who broke the franchise single-season 3-pointer record, and a tough performance from Zion Williamson, who battled with Draymond Green all night on both ends. Williamson finished with 26 points on 11-26 shooting and a career-high six steals.

The Pelicans will finish the season with a 28-14 record on the road. That's the most road wins they've ever had in franchise history. They will end the season with the most road wins by any team in the NBA this year.

Steph Curry had a leaning 3 to tie the game late, but missed. The Warriors lose to the Pelicans 114-109, falling back to the No. 10 seed. The Kings also lost, so the Lakers move into the No. 8 spot.

If LA beats the Pelicans on Sunday, it'll be Warriors vs Kings in the 9 vs. 10 matchup (in Sacramento, assuming the Kings beat the Blazers). If the Lakers lose, the Kings get the No. 8 seed with a win over Blazers. If both the Lakers and Kings lose, the Warriors can still get No. 8 with a win over Jazz.

With the Lakers’ 123-120 win over the shorthanded Grizzlies, their goal of moving up into the No. 7 vs. No. 8 game remains alive.

The Lakers (46-35) are currently the No. 8 seed, though that's technically due to both the Golden State Warriors (45-35) and Sacramento Kings (45-35) having not yet completed their games. Depending on what happens with the Warriors and Kings, the Lakers could enter Saturday as the No. 8 or 9 seed, which is an improvement from the No. 10 spot at which they began Friday.

Next up for the Lakers is the Pelicans in New Orleans on Sunday. One interesting note with that game: If the Pelicans beat the Warriors on Friday and Phoenix loses to Sacramento, New Orleans will be locked into the No. 6 spot, with incentive to rest their final game against the Lakers. If the Lakers win that, they'd be guaranteed at least the No. 9 spot (again, with a Warriors loss on Friday in this scenario).

There are a lot of moving pieces with the Lakers, like the rest of the West, monitoring where the Denver Nuggets are going to land. The best-case scenario would be being the No. 7 or 8 seed and landing the No. 2 Oklahoma City Thunder or Minnesota Timberwolves — two matchups the Lakers are confident in facing. The worst-case scenario would be drawing the Nuggets in the first round.

With their 125-103 win over the Toronto Raptors on Friday night, the Miami Heat remained in eighth in the Eastern Conference. However, they could, theoretically, still jump as high as fifth. All it would require is a Heat win on Sunday and a loss by all three of the Philadelphia 76ers, Indiana Pacers and Orlando Magic. That would mean all four teams would finish with a 46-36 record.

So why would the Heat win that particular tie? In any scenario in which more than two teams are tied, a division winner, if one exists, gets the edge. That means the tie between the Magic and the Heat must be broken first, and the Heat won the season series 3-1. Due to head-to-head records, the 76ers would finish sixth in that situation, the Pacers would be seventh and the Magic eighth.

It is unlikely. The 76ers and Pacers both play teams with no motivation to win on Sunday — the Brooklyn Nets and Atlanta Hawks, respectively. The Heat could finish sixth even if Philadelphia wins, so long as both the Pacers and the Magic, who play the Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday, lose.

The Milwaukee-Orlando game figures to be the biggest in the Eastern Conference on Sunday. If the Magic win, they will finish fifth in the Eastern Conference, having won the Southeast Division. If they lose, they would fall to eighth if the Heat beat the Raptors. The Bucks need that game to guarantee they finish second. If they lose and the New York Knicks beat the Chicago Bulls, the Knicks would finish second and the Bucks would risk falling as low as fourth if the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Charlotte Hornets.

Simple.

With the Dallas Mavericks' loss to the Detroit Pistons, the LA Clippers have clinched the No. 4 seed. The Clippers have nothing left to accomplish in the regular season standings.

The Spurs have come from 23 down to shock Denver 121-120 on a transition floater by Devonte' Graham with 0.9 seconds left. The loss pushes Denver down to the third seed in the West unless one of Minnesota or Oklahloma City loses on Sunday. The Nuggets lost their final chance to take the lead to a five-second violation. Victor Wembanyama scored 34 points and added 12 rebounds and five assists while stymieing Nikola Jokić around the basket multiple times late in the fourth quarter.

Following its too-close-for-comfort 109-106 win over Atlanta, Minnesota moves to 56-25, the same record as Oklahoma City and Denver. If all three teams win, the Thunder will be the No. 1 seed by virtue of a three-team tiebreaker, followed by Minnesota at 2 and Denver at 3. If the Wolves lose and Oklahoma City beats Dallas, which is likely to rest several players, the Thunder will be the top seed. However, Minnesota can get back to No. 1 if it wins and Denver loses.

So no team controls its own destiny.

The Cavaliers haven't fixed all of their issues, but they pulled out a much-needed 129-120 win over the Indiana Pacers to clinch a playoff berth. They're fourth in the East, which is likely where they'll settle when the season concludes Sunday. It's also where they finished last season, albeit with fewer victories this time around.

The 76ers' closing surge continues with a wire-to-wire 125-113 win over the Orlando Magic. Joel Embiid dominated early, Tyrese Maxey closed the door late and Philly now has seven straight victories. Do you want to be the team that draws the 76ers in the first round? Me neither.

The Magic, meanwhile, have dropped three straight winnable games that could have moved them as high as the No. 2 seed had they gone differently. Instead, both the 76ers and Magic are 46-35.

For right now, the 76ers jump up to sixth, one spot ahead of Orlando. If the Pacers lose to Cleveland, they'll be 46-35 as well. In the event of a three-team tie, Orlando would end the night in fifth by virtue of being a division winner, followed by Indiana in sixth and Philadlephia in seventh.