Now, he moved, regular season. The post-NBA season is finally here. Kyrie Irving can play at home again, a change of heart about the vaccination rules made a few weeks ago by New York City in a move that will have a direct impact on the NBA championship game. Irving and the Brooklyn Nets beat the Indiana Pacers 134-126 on Sunday and will host the first play-in game of this year, when they will face the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday night. This match was not scheduled for Sunday, nor was the other East District play-in match: Atlanta No. 9 will host Charlotte No. 10 on Wednesday night. The winner of this game will play the Nets-Cavaliers losers on Friday to determine who will face No. 1 Miami in a series of eastern first rounds. The winner of the Nets-Cavaliers will be at number 7 and will meet either Boston or Milwaukee in the first round. Charlotte will be without striker Gordon Hayward, announcing on Sunday that he is “out indefinitely with constant discomfort in his left leg”. Hayward’s foot will be in plaster for at least two weeks, which means that if the Hornets win twice in the play-offs and enter the post-season, they will probably miss most of Round 1, at least as well. In the Western Conference, the Minnesota Timberwolves will host the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday night, with the winner claiming No. 7. The San Antonio Spurs will travel to New Orleans to face the Pelicans on Wednesday night and the winner will face the loser Timberwolves-Clippers. OTHER MATCHES Until the closing of the works on Sunday, the four best rows of the seven of the first round will also be determined. Boston or Milwaukee will play Chicago No. 6 in a series of first rounds in the East and Philadelphia or Boston will play Toronto in another Eastern Conference game. In the West, Golden State and Dallas compete later Sunday to see who finishes No. 3, while Utah and Denver both have a chance of being No. 5. RANKING TITLE Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid is the league top scorer, averaging 30.6 points. He was left out of the 76ers final on Sunday, not that he needed it for any statistical reason. Embiid – originally from Cameroon – becomes the first international player to win this title. Embiid is also the first center to win the crown after Shaquille O’Neal in 1999-2000. MATCH UP TO 82 Only five players were able to play on Sunday and have officially appeared in all 82 regular season games with their team this season: Miko Bridges of Phoenix, Saddiq Bey of Detroit, Deni Avdija of Washington, Dwight Powell of Dallas and the Warriors’ Kevon Looney. Avdija played at No. 82, scoring 12 points on Sunday afternoon in the defeat of the Wizards at the end of the season by Charlotte. The Bridges, Bay, Powell and Looney all had fights later on Sunday. It will mark the fewest players in NBA history to appear in any game for a full regular season. There were 11 players who appeared in all 72 games last season, which was shortened due to the pandemic. There were 14 players in each game in 2019-20, when the teams played different numbers of matches, again due to the pandemic and then not all the teams advanced to the restart bubble on Lake Buena Vista in Florida.
