On This Day In NBA History: August 15 - First Ever "Play-In Game" Is Played
A lot of rule changes have occurred in the NBA throughout the years.
Both the three-point line and the shot clock will likely forever go down as the two biggest changes to the game of basketball, but the Play-In Tournament has really made a big impact on both the Eastern and Western Conferences the last couple of seasons.
On this day in 2020, the Portland Trail Blazers and Memphis Grizzlies played in the NBA’s first “Play-In Game” down in the NBA Bubble.
Due to coronavirus shutting down the world and professional sports, the NBA resumed play of the 2019-20 season after a near five-month hiatus down in Orlando, Florida at the ESPN World of Sports Complex, creating their own “bubble” that the season could be continued and finished in.
With each team in the NBA Bubble playing eight seeding games to determine who would play who standings-wise in the playoffs, the league implemented an asterisk in both conference standings stating that if the 8-seed and 9-seed in either conference were within four games of each other, the two seeds would play each other in a play-in game to determine who the actual 8-seed would be in the playoffs.
As a result of the Trail Blazers and Grizzlies finishing within a half-a-game of one another in the Western Conference, these two teams squared off in the first “official” Play-In Game in NBA history.
Defeating Memphis 126-122, Portland advanced to the NBA Playoffs and drew a matchup with the 1-seeded Los Angeles Lakers, who eventually went on to win the NBA Finals in the NBA Bubble.
Damian Lillard (31 points), CJ McCollum (29 points) and Jusuf Nurkic (22 points) combined to score 82 of the Blazers’ 126 total points in this one and Nurkic also recorded 21 rebounds, the third-most he has ever recorded in a game, even though these stats are not “officially” kept in NBA record books.
For the Grizzlies, Ja Morant finished with 35 points and 8 assists, as Brandon Clarke scored 20 points off-the-bench. Jonas Valanciunas finished with 22 points and 17 rebounds as well.
Now, the NBA has changed the way the Play-In Tournament works, as the 7-seed through the 10-seed in both conferences now have to earn their actual playoff spots.
The 9-seed plays the 10-seed with the loser being eliminated from postseason contention and the winner moving on to play the loser of the 7-seed versus 8-seed game. The winner of this 7-seed versus 8-seed game claims the 7-seed in the conference and faces off with the 2-seed in the first-round of the playoffs. Then, of the two teams remaining, the winner of this game claims the 8-seed in the playoffs and faces the 1-seed in the first-round.
The Play-In Tournament has been very successful for the NBA through its first two full seasons since being officially adopted and it has created more end-of-season competition between teams who are on the verge of making the playoffs.
