How might the NBA's play-in (Game 1: 2:30 ET Saturday, ABC) for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference play out?
The Portland Trail Blazers secured a spot in the play-in Thursday night when they escaped a bid by the Brooklyn Nets to knock them out and give the 8-0 Phoenix Suns a shot to extend their unbeaten run in the bubble. Instead, it will be Portland against the Memphis Grizzlies, with the Blazers entering in the favorable position of the eighth seed.
While this year's play-in was a response to a regular season shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic, there is some precedent for the format. Let's see what we can learn from that and projections of the two teams based on the multiyear version of ESPN's real plus-minus (RPM).
Here's what to expect this weekend, and why Memphis has a chance.
Play-in precedent points to upsets
The NBA has used single-elimination tiebreakers, including various iterations from 1948 to 1956, but these days the closest parallel is the second round of the WNBA's playoff format adopted in 2016. In that round, the WNBA offers the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds the same benefit conveyed to the team finishing No. 8 entering this year's NBA play-in: The higher seed must win only once, while the lower seed must win twice to advance.
Somewhat surprisingly, given those edges, the higher-seeded teams have gone just 4-4 in the second round of the playoffs since 2016. In 2017, both home teams were upset in the second round, and last year was the first time both home teams advanced.
To some extent, we could call this the Diana Taurasi effect. Incredibly, Taurasi's Phoenix Mercury won back-to-back games to emerge out of the first two rounds of the playoffs each of the first three years of the format -- with four of those six wins coming on the road. Without the injured Taurasi, Phoenix finally lost a single-game playoff last season to the Chicago Sky.
It's possible to look at the WNBA data and theorize that the Grizzlies might have something of an advantage from momentum if they win Saturday to force a winner-take-all game Sunday. Still, I wouldn't spend much time worrying about that as the Blazers. After all, the sample is tiny and Taurasi-heavy.
Projecting forward to whichever team wins the play-in and faces the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers, we haven't seen the underdogs' WNBA success carry over when teams that won their way out of the single-elimination rounds meet the top two seeds in the best-of-five WNBA semifinals. They've gone 1-7 in those series overall and 1-7 in Game 1 specifically, suggesting any benefit to being in rhythm wears off quickly.
Projecting Portland vs. Memphis
Based on the kind of rotations we can expect to see from both teams with a playoff spot on the line, RPM gives the Blazers the edge. According to the RPM projections, we'd expect Portland to win a single game about 55% of the time.
That seems reasonable given the outcome when these teams squared off two weeks ago in the opening seeding game for both. The Blazers needed overtime to shake free of the Grizzlies in a game that ended up deciding the seeding for the play-in -- and Portland making it at all, given the Blazers finished just a half-game better than the Suns.
Memphis did have Jaren Jackson Jr. available for that game, in which he scored a team-high 33 points. But starting center Jonas Valanciunas was limited to 14 minutes by foul trouble. The Grizzlies also struggled in that game with reserve forward Josh Jackson on the court, getting outscored by 14 points in Jackson's 13 minutes. He has since been largely excised from Taylor Jenkins' rotation, playing only six total minutes in the other seven seeding games.
One potential difference-maker for Memphis would be the return of backup point guard Tyus Jones, who has yet to play in the restart after experiencing knee soreness during practice. Portland dominated the 12-plus minutes presumptive Rookie of the Year Ja Morant spent on the bench in their head-to-head matchup -- which overlapped with Jackson's playing time -- and Jenkins has extended him beyond 40 minutes twice in the past three games, the two longest outings of Morant's NBA career.
With no margin for error to make the play-in, the Blazers' stars have been logging heavy minutes, too. Damian Lillard played at least 39 minutes in all eight seeding games, and both he and backcourt mate CJ McCollum -- who's playing through a transverse fracture in his lower back -- went 44 minutes in Thursday's game. Portland will have a quicker turnaround for the first play-in game, which will tip off Saturday afternoon barely 39 hours after the Blazers outlasted the Nets in a grueling game that required the full 48 minutes for a decision.
Lillard looks poised to claim Player of the Seeding Games after putting up a combined 154 points in Portland's past three games while shooting 56% from the field and 21-of-43 (49%) from beyond the arc. Brooklyn repeatedly trapped Lillard near half court to take the ball out of his hands, a strategy the Grizzlies might want to emulate -- particularly when they have the more mobile rookie Brandon Clarke at center rather than asking Valanciunas to trap far from the basket.
Ultimately, this matchup is probably close enough that the seeding would determine a favorite. Remember, though Memphis has a good shot at winning Saturday, the Grizzlies have to back that up with a second win on Sunday to reach the playoffs. And that's where the odds tilt heavily in the Blazers' favor. Assuming the two games are independent -- something that might slightly undersell Portland's chances, given that teams tend to perform better after a loss in the playoffs -- they're projected to win at least one of the two some 80% of the time.
MORE: Bubble intel -- Blazers survive Nets, advance to play-in