NBA Is BACK!!! New "Elimination Format" EXPLAINED

The NBA is officially back! But as you may have heard, there are a lot of modifications and a special set of rules which can be a bit confusing. So let me explain everything you need to know about it. What up everybody my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it.
These are the 9 teams for the East and 13 teams from the West that will return to play out the season. Each of them is going to play 8 more regular season games. And the wins and losses will be added to the original record that they’ve had so far, and that’s how the playoff picture will be formed. The format of the playoffs will remain the same as we know it. No changes there.
But speaking of changes, here’s the first modification: Obviously, the teams that were out of the playoffs at the time the season ended, like the Blazers, Pelicans, or the Wizards for example, had more than 25 games left to improve their record and get to the last playoff spot right? But now, there are only 8 games left to do that. So what the league did as a way of compromise is this:
At the end of those remaining 8 games, if the 9th placed team is within 4 games behind or less of the 8 seeded team in the conference, then these 2 teams are going to play an elimination tournament between them, to get in the playoffs. The rules are: The 9th seeded team has to win 2 games, and the 8 seed only has to win 1. That way there’s a compromise between giving the teams enough of a chance to get in the playoffs, but at the same time respecting the ones that have already won a lot of games and actually placed within the first 8 teams. So let me give you a practical example.
Let’s say that the season continues and teams play those 8 games, and these current standings are going to be the same as the final ones.
In the East we can see that the Wizards are more than 4 games back so Orlando goes to the playoffs and there’s no need for elimination games.
However in the West, the Blazers are less than 4 games behind Memphis so hypothetically they would play each other. If the Grizzlies win that game, then they go to the playoffs. But if Portland wins, then there will be another game to see if they can get 2 wins before Memphis gets the 1 they need.
So with the technical stuff out of the way, we can now see that there’s going to be a bloodbath between these competitors. First of all, the Blazers could get both Nurkic and Collins back from their injuries and be significantly more dangerous in this race.
Same with Pelicans and Zion, as well as the Spurs who we must keep an eye on, especially in a high pressure situation like this where every game matters. Their experience is priceless here.
Another wild card in this scenario are the Brooklyn Nets. On one side, they could get both Kyrie and KD back and be extremely dangerous in the playoffs. Although it’s highly unlikely that KD comes back honestly. But on the other hand, as you can see they haven’t even secured their playoff spot. A few bad losses and they could easily find themselves playing an elimination tournament against the Wizards. So everything is in play and it’s gonna be super interesting to watch the remainder of the season.
And on that topic obviously we know that everything will happen in Disney World in Orlando, 1 location for all the teams. But what’s important to note is that each person there will be tested every day so that the league has the entire situation under control and the risk is minimized.
Other than the players and coaches there’s only going to be a small number of staff members and equipment personnel. And most importantly of course there isn’t going to be any audience in the arena for the games.
And lastly here are all the dates that you need to know.
The season returns on July 31st. If the NBA finals go to a game 7, that would be played on the 12th of October.
The draft will happen shortly after on October 15 and if nothing changes till then, the next season is scheduled to begin on December 1st.
So as you can see the teams won’t have a lot of rest, everything is tightly packed, but this is the only solution in an unprecedented situation like this.
Hang on for 56 more days everybody. There’s finally light at the end of the tunnel.
That’s it for now, if you liked this video subscribe and hit the notification bell so that you don’t miss my future in depth analysis. Talk to you in the next one. Peace out.

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