The first spring postseason gets underway tonight–in fact, it’s going on right now–and with it comes a long series of pro playoffs to take us right into summer.
Technically, only the “play-in tournament” starts tonight, which appears to be considered by the league as wholly separate from the main playoff tournament. But for the sake of this post, we’ll call it all the same.
And with this new playoffs comes the first official playoff pre-play in Short Season Games’s short history. This pre-played tournament, which I rolled over the past 24 hours, saw some major upsets, some surprising finishes, an overtime game 7 thriller to upset the 1 seed in the West conference semifinals, and a team coming back from a 3-0 deficit to win in the East Finals. So without further ado, I’d like to present to you how the 2023 pro basketball playoffs shook out in the Simple Seasons Universe.
Play-in Games
East
#7 Miami 117, #8 Atlanta 104 (MIA confirms #7 seed)
#9 Toronto 122, #10 Chicago 115 (TOR advances)
#8 Atlanta 128, #9 Toronto 109 (ATL confirms #8 seed)
West
#8 Minnesota 117, #7 Los Angeles (L) 113 (MIN becomes #7)
#9 New Orleans 114, #10 Oklahoma City 109 (NO advances)
#7 Los Angeles (L) 122, #9 New Orleans 112 (LAL becomes #8)
First Round
East
#8 Atlanta def. #1 Milwaukee, 4-2
#2 Boston def. #7 Miami, 4-0
#6 Brooklyn def. #3 Philadelphia, 4-2
#4 Cleveland def. #5 New York, 4-2
West
#1 Denver def. #8 Los Angeles (L), 4-2
#2 Memphis def. #7 Minnesota, 4-3
#3 Sacramento def. #6 Golden State, 4-2
#4 Phoenix def. #5 Los Angeles (C), 4-3
Conference Semifinals
East
#6 Brooklyn def. #2 Boston, 4-2
#4 Cleveland def. #8 Atlanta, 4-1
West
#4 Phoenix def. #1 Denver, 4-3
#2 Memphis def. #3 Sacramento, 4-3
Conference Finals
East: #6 Brooklyn def. #4 Cleveland, 4-3
West: #2 Memphis def. #4 Phoenix, 4-3
League Finals
Memphis def. Brooklyn, 4-3
See the whole playoffs, including scores, here.
Now to celebrate the fact that basketball playoffs have arrived, not only am I offering 15% off basketball games for the duration of the playoffs, but I’m also introducing a new Playoff Edition of the current season. I’ll explain more in another post, but this will look slightly different than a typical season set.
Also, for every series that Simple Seasons Basketball predicted during this playoffs, I’ll mark everything on the site down 5%. So if I’ve predicted 10 series correctly (just winner, not the series length), I’ll mark things down 50%. Everyone wins!
So for now, use code BBKPLAYOFFS for 15% all basketball items in the store, and enjoy the postseason!
(By the way, men’s pro hockey playoffs are right around the corner! Keep an eye out for another pre-play coming soon.)
