2026 NBA playoffs: LeBron James vs. Kevin Durant and the must-see matchups in every first-round series

Fun battles await in the first round of the 2026 NBA playoffs, including a pair of legends facing off in LeBron James and Kevin Durant, and some top-notch strategic showdowns. Let’s break down the matchups to watch in each series.

East: 76ers-Celtics • Hawks-Knicks • Raptors-Cavaliers
West: Blazers-Spurs • Wolves-Nuggets • Rockets-Lakers

76ers-Celtics: Tyrese Maxey vs. Derrick White

Because Payton Pritchard, the 2025 Sixth Man of the Year, started Boston’s first three games vs. Philadelphia this season, he drew the bulk of the defensive assignment on Maxey. Pritchard, who is quick, did a decent job, even better than White, at least statistically.

But I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest White — Boston’s All-Defensive candidate — will draw the assignment on the 76ers’ All-NBA guard to start the series. His ability to pick pockets (1.1 steals per game) and swat shots (1.3 blocks per game) will make Maxey think on every possession, even if he has had success against White.

White had plenty of success against Maxey, too, scoring 20 points in less than 10 minutes when matched up with the Sixers’ guard, according to NBA tracking data. The Celtics scored 161 points per 100 possessions whenever Jaylen Brown called Maxey into the action. Jayson Tatum will pick on Maxey, too. All of the Celtics will. It’s a problem, especially if and when Embiid isn’t there to add a layer of rim protection behind him.

Everything to know for the NBA playoffs: Predictions, series previews, X-factors

The Sixers were outscored by 1.3 points per 100 possessions in the 40.5 minutes per game that Maxey was on the floor against the Celtics this season, and that will spell trouble for Philadelphia if the trend continues. Slot Edgecombe beside Maxey, and the Sixers outscored the Celtics by 1.8 points per 100 possessions over 127 minutes.

Add George to the mix, leverage the defense further, leaving Maxey and Edgecombe on islands, and maybe Philadelphia has something, or so the thinking goes. George hasn’t played a second against Boston this season. Then again, the Celtics have also added a wing of their own, and theirs is a 28-year-old modern marvel of medicine. — Rohrbach

76ers-Celtics series preview, schedule and prediction

Hawks-Knicks: How Atlanta defends KAT

The book on how best to deal with Karl-Anthony Towns — and to defang the Jalen Brunson-Towns two-man game, which has shown promise at times since Leon Rose paired them, but hasn’t been nearly as ubiquitous as Knicks fans hoped — has been to juggle the defensive matchups, stationing a smaller wing defender on Towns and your center “on” (but, really, a considerable distance off) Josh Hart.

Do that, and you put yourself in position to prevent Towns from getting a steady diet of pick-and-pop looks against a big man playing drop coverage, and to switch the Brunson-KAT pick-and-roll without granting Brunson a mismatch against a lumbering center. You also might induce the Knicks to funnel more shots to Hart, a 35% career 3-point shooter whom you’d much rather see firing than New York’s two All-NBA offensive aces. (Expect the Knicks to pull a similar “ghost coverage” gambit with Dyson Daniels, who shot just 18.8% from 3-point range on 1.5 attempts per game this season — though he did make at least one 3 in seven of his final 10 appearances.)

(Mallory Bielecki/Yahoo Sports Illustration)

Atlanta, though, has largely eschewed such cross-matching, preferring instead to keep starting center Onyeka Okongwu on Towns while putting its weakest starting-lineup defender elsewhere — Trae Young on Mikal Bridges back in December, CJ McCollum on Hart last week — and otherwise playing things straight. Towns has mostly torched that coverage, scoring 57 points in 62 minutes on 63% shooting against Atlanta and routinely either getting clean looks beyond the arc or free releases on rolls to the basket with little-to-no secondary rim protection behind Okongwu.

If New York is able to punish straight-up coverage on Towns in a way that proves untenable for Atlanta — whether by KAT finishing himself or by Brunson getting going off the ball in a two-man game that’s looked better and better of late … how will Hawks coach Quin Snyder respond? Does he want to chance entrusting Jalen Johnson with that defensive responsibility while also needing him to serve as Atlanta’s top creator and finisher? He surely wants to keep Daniels on Brunson at every opportunity; if Towns is on fire, though, does he gamble on sliding his best defender into the matchup, cycling Nickeil Alexander-Walker over to Brunson, and daring the Knicks to make the likes of OG Anunoby, Bridges and Hart beat them?

Or does he just stay the course, trusting that even if Towns goes off, the Hawks will be able to make it up on the other end — where they’ve scored a scorching 123.3 points-per-100 against New York in KAT’s minutes this season? — Devine

Hawks-Knicks series preview, schedule and prediction

Raptors-Cavaliers: Scottie Barnes vs. Evan Mobley

Barnes, one of the NBA’s most versatile defenders, spent more time on few other players this season than Mobley. He defended Mobley for parts of 113 possessions, and the Cavaliers scored just 98 points in them. This is a Cleveland team that scored 118.3 points per 100 possessions, as the sixth-most efficient offense in the league.

The same can be said of Mobley, another one of the NBA’s most versatile defenders. He spent the bulk of his time against the Raptors on Barnes, helping to hold Toronto to just 85.9 points per 100 possessions in those minutes. It’s an old-fashioned head-to-head defensive battle between two of the better players to operate on that end.How much can Barnes help off Mobley? Can Mobley, who shot just 30.5% on wide-open 3s this year, keep Barnes, with Jakob Poeltl, from clogging the paint, where Donovan Mitchell and James Harden will want to operate, alongside Jarrett Allen, away from Toronto’s top defender?

Likewise, how much will Mobley make Barnes work on the offensive end? Barnes shot just 24% on pull-up 3-point attempts for the season. The last thing the Raptors want is Mobley roaming free, with Allen, as Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett and Brandon Ingram try to create.

Neither of their offensive games is all that reliable. If Barnes and Mobley end up neutralizing each other, you have to like Cleveland’s chances with the ball in the hands of both Mitchell and Harden. The Cavs’ two-guard lineups, featuring some combination of Mitchell, Darius Garland and Ty Jerome last season, torched the Raptors. They can now weaponize a similar triumvirate of Mitchell, Harden and Dennis Schröder.

Both teams have plenty of offensive weapons. Each has a defensive monster to counteract those arsenals, and the series may come down to which of them can make a broader impact — even beyond the man-to-man defense of one another. — Rohrbach

Raptors-Cavaliers series preview, schedule and prediction

Blazers-Spurs: Avdija vs. Wembanyama in the paint

Nobody in the NBA drove to the basket, generated free-throw attempts on drives or delivered assists off drives this season more than Deni Avdija did. His relentless rim pressure is the organizing principle of Portland’s offense.

His ability to consistently bulldoze past defenders at the point of attack, get to his strong right hand and put his even-stronger-left-shoulder into a retreating would-be stopper creates a ton of scoring chances directly at the cup — one likely to end in either a bucket, a trip to the charity stripe or a reset for a Blazers squad that, led by Donovan Clingan and Robert Williams, tied for third in the NBA in offensive rebounding rate and finished first in second-chance points per game.

It also produced lots of opportunities for his teammates to feast on kickouts, with Avdija’s penetration drawing defensive attention and opening up passing lanes for either a quick catch-and-shoot launch — only five teams scored more points per game than Portland on spot-up shots, according to Synergy — or another drive past a step-slow closeout, keeping the blender whirring, the defense off-balance and the offense in control.

It’s not a particularly pretty offense, per se, nor is it necessarily all that efficient. It does have a certain brutal elegance, though: We’re betting that if we keep pounding our battering ram into your castle gate, eventually it’s going to smash open, and we’ll be able to come in and take whatever we want.

The issue facing the Blazers is that San Antonio isn’t just guarded by a gate. It’s defended by a dragon.

The Blazers took more than 35% of their shots at the rim. Against Wembanyama, though, Spurs’ opponents took just 26% of their shots there; that would’ve been the NBA’s second-lowest mark this season. They scored just 38 points per 100 possessions in the paint and shot just 47.5% inside the arc with Wembanyama on the floor — both very, very far below what the NBA’s worst interior attacks managed over the course of the full season. And as excellent as the Blazers are at generating second chances, Wemby and Co. are just as good at limiting them; he led the league in defensive rebounding rate among individual defends, the Spurs led the league in defensive rebounding rate among teams, and they held opponents to just 13.7 second-chance points per game, fourth-fewest in the NBA. — Devine

Trail Blazers-Spurs series preview, schedule and prediction

Matchup to watch: The Wolves’ attempts to slow down Jokić

Minnesota essentially developed the closest thing to a blueprint to dealing with Nikola Jokić in the 2023 playoffs, stationing jumbo power forward Karl-Anthony Towns on Jokić with Rudy Gobert cross-matched onto Aaron Gordon to lurk as a perpetual second line of defense. It didn’t pay major dividends in that series, which Denver finished off in five games en route to the NBA championship; it did give the Wolves a fighting chance the following postseason, though, helping limit Jokić to just 45% shooting — 17% from 3-point range — with 17 turnovers against 26 assists in Minnesota’s four wins in that second-round slugfest.

With Towns now in New York, though, the initial assignment goes to Julius Randle — several inches shorter, with a shorter wingspan — and the overall experience hasn’t gone so hot. Jokić averaged 35.8 points per game against the Wolves this season, shooting a combined 24-for-34 (70.5%) from the field against starter Randle and reserve Naz Reid, with a 19-to-9 assist-to-turnover ratio and five shooting fouls drawn, according to NBA.com’s matchup data.

Which is to say: It’s a matchup that leaves the Wolves looking for a little help.

“Probably gotta call God and talk to him for a little bit,” Randle said Wednesday. “Ask him for a few favors.”

While awaiting divine intervention, Minnesota will have to make do with more terrestrial reinforcements. Back in March, Chris Finch primarily played it straight, having Gobert take primary responsibility for Jokić — a matchup with which Jokić has been very (sometimes comedically) comfortable over the years, but in which the Wolves were able to keep Jokić in check just enough to come away with their lone win of the season over Denver.

Finch has turned over just about every rock he can in search of adjustments, at one point or another. McDaniels and Edwards have picked up Jokić late in games, when the Wolves want to be able to switch the Jokić-Murray two-man action. Reserve forward Kyle Anderson, now back in Minnesota, pulled shifts on him in the 2023 and 2024 playoffs. Against a Nuggets team that has more shooting than previous iterations — Murray, Johnson, Watson and Tim Hardaway Jr. all shot better than 40% from deep this season, and Gordon has evolved into a consistent knockdown shooter you can’t just comfortably sag off in the cross-match — Finch may well have to turn over more rocks over the next couple of weeks for the Wolves to have any hopes of slowing perhaps the sport’s toughest cover. — Devine

Timberwolves-Nuggets series preview, schedule and prediction

Rockets-Lakers: LeBron James vs. Kevin Durant!

Honestly, why complicate this. These are two of the greatest, if not the two greatest, players of their generation. Assuming Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves are not available, at least for the start of this series, James and Durant will somehow be the offensive engines of this West’s Nos. 4 and 5 seeds at years 23 and 18 of their careers, respectively.

James and Durant have met three times in the NBA Finals and never on the same side of the playoff bracket. LeBron won the first meeting with a powerhouse Miami Heat team in 2012. KD won in 2017 and 2018 with his mighty Golden State Warriors.

This could be the coda to their rivalry. It likely will not be a deciding factor in it. Neither team is considered a serious championship contender, even with Dončić and Reaves. The offensive limitations of Houston, and the defensive limitations of Los Angeles, likely limit their ceilings, as do the ages of their superstar leaders.

They may not be the players they were, but they are damn close. Only Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, James Harden, Jaylen Brown, Anthony Edwards and Dončić were more productive in isolation than Durant this season. He remains a midrange maestro.

James, even without Dončić and Reaves this season, is leading lineups that have outscored opponents by 11.3 points per 100 meaningful possessions, according to Cleaning the Glass. He can still do everything on a basketball court at the age of 41.

And we get to watch. Still. — Rohrbach

Rockets-Lakers series preview, schedule and prediction