Winners and losers of NBA's regular-season finales: Bracket breaks nicely for Rockets and Cavaliers

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The 2025-26 NBA regular season is officially in the books. With the Play-In Tournament set to begin Tuesday and the first round of the playoffs on Saturday, here's a look at the matchups and series schedules that we know so far. Before we get to that, let's take a look back at the final day of the season and suss out the winners and losers in terms of how it all shook out.

Winner: Houston Rockets

Three weeks ago, everyone in the West wanted to play the Rockets in the first round. They looked broken, and the Lakers were firing on all cylinders. Oh, how things have changed. Now the Rockets have nine of 10 heading into the playoffs, and they get the banged-up Lakers in the first round. L.A. is going to be playing without Austin Reaves and likely Luka Dončić for the duration of the series.

It could have gone another way. Had the Spurs beaten the Nuggets on Sunday, which they had incentive to do (we'll touch on this below), the Rockets would've had to play Denver in the first round. Getting the Lakers sans Doncic and Reaves instead is a gift from the basketball gods.

[2026 NBA playoff bracket: Matchups, schedule with postseason field finalized

Brad Botkin

Loser: New York Knicks

This is by no means the Knicks fault, but they would've rather played the Raptors in the first round. Instead, they'll get the Hawks, who lost to Miami on Sunday to fall to No. 6 in the East bracket. Atlanta is one of the hottest teams in the league. Trae Young isn't around anymore, but the 2021 series isn't forgotten. Since the All-Star break, the Hawks are making 15 3-pointers per game, fifth most in the league, while the Knicks are bottom-10 in 3-point defense. It will be a major factor in this series, which I expect the Knicks to win, but it may not be nearly as easy as you would like a first-round series to be.

Winner: Cleveland Cavaliers

If the Knicks are losers for having to face the Hawks in the first round, then it stands to reason that the Cavs are winners for not having to. Instead, the Cavs get Toronto (no disrespect, but the Raptors are the weakest playoff team in the East) while also ending up on the opposite side of the bracket from the Celtics, the best team in the East with Jayson Tatum back and trending up every game. So now, if seeds hold, New York and Boston have to play each other in the second round while Cleveland is looking at Toronto-Detroit in the first two rounds. Detroit is no cakewalk, but that's a cleaner path to the conference finals.

Loser: San Antonio Spurs

After Victor Wembanyama played on Friday night, I really thought the Spurs would go the extra mile and play him again against Denver in the season finale. There was a lot at stake. Had San Antonio beaten the Nuggets, Denver would've fallen to No. 4 in the West, which would've meant a second-round series vs. OKC if chalk is to hold. For the Spurs, forcing OKC and Denver to battle it out and only have to potentially play one of them in the playoffs would've been a big deal. Instead, the Spurs sat Wemby, lost to Denver, and now are likely going to have to defeat Denver and OKC in consecutive rounds in order to make the Finals.

Winner: Portland Trail Blazers

The Blazers headed into Sunday needing a win over the Kings to secure the No. 8 seed, and they got it. This isn't going to register on the national radar -- a barely-.500 team making the Play-In Tournament. Who cares, right? Well, No. 8 is a lot different than No. 9. It means the Blazers, instead of having to win two straight play-in games, now have two chances to win one to get into the playoffs.

The Blazers almost certainly won't get out of the first round if they make the playoffs, but it's important for a team building through a young core to get some payoff for a positive season and feel the heat of the playoffs first-hand. They still have to beat the Suns, or if they lose that one, the Warriors or Clippers to get there, but again, two shots is better than one and they gave themselves that with the win on Sunday.

Winner: Milwaukee Bucks

Doc Rivers is reportedly out as Milwaukee's coach, which doesn't necessarily mean Giannis Antetokounmpo is going to stay but it can't hurt with the sales pitch. Giannis has already taken thinly veiled shots at Rivers by way of publicly admiring Joe Mazzulla's no-excuse approach, and it feels fair to say that had Milwaukee been tone deaf enough to run it back with Rivers next season, it would've been very hard to sell Giannis on the idea that things are going to turn around with the same old leadership. Chances are the Giannis era is over anyway. But this is at least a step in the direction of growth.

[Doc Rivers out as Bucks head coach after 50-loss season, and more changes could be coming in Milwaukee

Sam Quinn

Loser: Orlando Magic

This has not been Orlando's season, but, coming into Sunday, they still had a chance at a guaranteed playoff berth with a win over the Celtics. True, they also needed Toronto to lose to Brooklyn, which was a super long shot and ultimately didn't happen, but Orlando, playing at full strength, wasn't even able to hold up its end of the bargain in losing to a Celtics team that basically ran out a G-League squad.

Even with the Toronto win, the Magic could've secured the No. 7 seed with a win of their own, which, in the play-in era, has been as good as a guaranteed playoff spot. All No. 7 seeds have made the playoffs in the Play-In Tournament era. But now the Magic fall to No. 8 and have to play the 76ers on the road. If they lose that, there's a good chance they face the Hornets, who have been one of the best teams in the league for some time, in a do-or-die play-in game.