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

The LA Clippers need a combination of two of their wins and Mavericks losses to clinch a top-4 seed, I.e., the Clippers' magic number for home-court advantage in conference quarterfinals is two.

They will not clinch that tonight, though, as the Mavericks decisively won in Charlotte prior to the Clippers' visit to Phoenix Tuesday night.

Bucks coach Doc Rivers tells reporters that Giannis Antetokounmpo is undergoing testing for his left calf, an MRI.

Question: We were told it is a left soleus/calf strain. Just curious: did he get an Achilles tendon test.

Answer: "Yeah. They're testing him for the calf, which is obviously an MRI. They'll check them both, yeah."

Question: And there are no updates on that?

Answer: "No. He just left a little while ago."

Credit to Khris Middleton and the Bucks for coming out strong to enter the fourth quarter after losing Giannis Antetokounmpo for the night. The Celtics had clawed back late in the third quarter to finally make this a competitive game and Milwaukee closed the door on that pretty quickly. The Bucks have shot well while the Celtics have been ice cold, but Middleton has just taken over at the right moments by targeting mismatches and capitalizing on second-chance opportunities.

With 3:40 remaining in the third quarter of Tuesday's game vs. the Celtics, Giannis Antetokounmpo crumpled to the floor while running up the court and immediately started to hold the lower portion of his left leg. After sitting on the floor for a short period, he was helped off the floor by teammates, but went straight back to the locker room under his own power.

The Bucks have announced that his injury is a left calf strain — specifically the soleus muscle — and he will not return to tonight's game. Here's more from Doc Rivers after the game.

Giannis Antetokounmpo is down on the floor after he went to the floor with no contact running up the floor in the third quarter against the Boston Celtics.

Doc Rivers called a timeout and his teammates helped him off the floor and back to the locker room.

In Chicago, with the Bulls trailing 36-27 in the second quarter, Chicago's Torrey Craig got a steal and on a 3-0 breakaway tried to throw himself an alley-oop off the glass. Andre Drummond, the trail man, thought the oop was for him and they both tried to dunk it. It didn't go well. Drummond then hurt his leg and had to be helped off the court and moved to a wheelchair.

James Harden is out for the Clippers against the Suns. Russell Westbrook will start for first time since November.

Darvin Ham says LeBron James is still a “game-time decision” tonight vs Warriors. Anthony Davis is out. Davis will miss seven of the eight quarters in these two late-season games vs Warriors. Left after 1Q last month. Warriors will see plenty of Jaxson Hates tonight.

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch on the possibility of Karl-Anthony Towns returning before the playoffs: “That’s the hope.” Says he “looks incredible” and they will hope to see him “sooner rather than later.”

In the midst of a four-game losing streak, the Milwaukee Bucks are planning to move Patrick Beverley into the starting lineup in place of Malik Beasley versus the Boston Celtics tonight, league sources said. Beasley had started all 75 games played this season and ranks ninth in the NBA in 3-pointers made.

The Celtics, who have already clinched the league’s best record, can’t change their seed over the remainder of the regular season. But they could still have a bit of influence on their playoff path. With the rest of the Eastern Conference field jumbled behind them, it will be interesting to see how Boston approaches tonight’s matchup with Milwaukee.

A Celtics win would push the Bucks closer to falling out of the second seed — and potentially closer to the fourth or fifth spot and a possible second-round matchup against Boston. Do the Celtics consider Milwaukee their chief competition in the East? Would Boston be better off losing, keeping the Bucks in second, and postponing a series against the Bucks as long as possible? I don’t know the answers, but the situation is intriguing.

While no first-round matchups are set, one feels like it is, and the probabilities agree: The LA Clippers, with a 96 percent chance to finish as the No. 4 seed, vs. the surging Dallas Mavericks, whose odds are at 95 percent to land fifth, per Basketball Reference. It’d only be fitting these two teams square back off against each other after the Clippers’ 2020 and 2021 first-round wins against Dallas.

There are plenty of similarities and some major differences, especially for Dallas, who has completely remade its roster several times in the ensuing years. Even those who remain have changed — since that 2021 series, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Maxi Kleber have gone from starters to roles off the bench, while Josh Green, who only played four minutes of garbage time in that series, has emerged as a reliable rotation player. But Dallas, of course, is still led by Luka Dončić, who has career postseason averages of 33.5 points and 9.5 assists against the Clippers. While his heroics weren’t enough to win either series, he’s returning to this one with more reinforcements than ever before.

The big question if this series does come to fruition: Will the Clippers enter this series wanting to go small, and/or will they quickly discover they have no choice? If so, can those lineups be effective enough to force Dallas into doing the same thing they did in 2020 and 2021? In the last series these teams played, Dončić's switch-hunting ruthlessness did play Ivica Zubac off the floor (although Dallas also leaned into weirdness by starting Boban Marjanović), but the Clippers also had better options to use as a small-ball center.

The series isn’t set, but the math indicates we're only getting slightly ahead of ourselves with this early analysis. These Clippers have shown a higher ceiling than the manner in which they've played as late, while Dallas has been playing its best ball since the trade deadline — perhaps of the entire Dončić era. With a couple more wins from these two teams, it should lock this potential matchup in for good, but we’ll find out soon enough.

There's going to be a lot of scrutiny on the 7-8 seed positioning in the Eastern Conference. You know the Milwaukee Bucks will be watching. And, hoo boy, wouldn't we all want to know which way they're leaning.

The Philadelphia 76ers and the Miami Heat are likely to take up those two seeds, but in what order? Philadelphia is currently a half-game up on the Heat, though Miami has an extra game to play. Right now, Basketball Reference gives the 76ers a 44 percent chance to land the 7-seed and the Heat a 40.5 percent chance. Miami has given Milwaukee lots of trouble in the playoffs in years past, including ousting the top-seeded Bucks last season. But Philly is hot right now — they haven't lost since Joel Embiid came back from injury last week and have won five straight overall. The 76ers, with a healthy Embiid, does not seem like a fun playoff opponent to face, especially for a team trying to find itself and avoid a second straight upset to a Play-In survivor.

There's the other side of this, too. The Bucks seem a lot more beatable than the top-seeded Celtics, so Philadelphia and Miami should want to get the 7-seed if they can. The difference would be gigantic. The Celtics could still win as many as 66 games this season. The Bucks might not even win 50.

That's if they hold on to the 2-seed. The Magic and Knicks are just a game back and all three teams have four games left on their schedules.

The Clippers play Phoenix tonight and against tomorrow. If they get swept, that could open the door for surging Dallas (at Charlotte tonight) to wrest home-court advantage in their likely 4-5 series. But the Clippers are two games up and have the tiebreak.

Atlanta and Chicago play at home tonight against Miami and New York, respectively. The Hawks and Bulls are locked into a Play-In matchup, but the Hawks can get the game in Atlanta if they sweep their final four games and Chicago loses twice.

Houston has been spicy despite ultimately falling short in its playoff quest. However, would the Rockets consider bailing now? Houston can move itself up from 12th to 10th in the draft lottery by dropping its final four games and allowing the Hawks and Bulls to pass them.

Finally, draft fanatics will note that Charlotte and San Antonio are in a dead heat for the third-worst record at 19 wins. Remember, there are no tiebreaks for draft position. Instead, it gets decided by a coin flip. At the moment, two-game cushions separate the other likely lottery participants.