The NBA playoffs don't even officially start until Saturday, but already in this postseason the following things have occurred:
— Charlotte's LaMelo Ball grabbed at Miami's Bam Adebayo's foot, Adebayo fell and was knocked out of the game with a back injury, Ball got the game-winning basket in overtime, and then appeared to strike his own team's mascot in the head during the postgame celebration.
— Portland became the third team in play-in tournament history to rally from more than 10 points down in the fourth quarter to win a game.
— There was the second one-point game in play-in history (Miami has now lost both of those, both on the road).
— Tuesday marked the second day in play-in history where two games were decided by four points or less.
And that was just Day 1 of the postseason.
The Trail Blazers won in Phoenix to secure the No. 7 seed in the Western Conference and a first-round matchup with Victor Wembanyama and the second-seeded San Antonio Spurs. Charlotte beat Miami to end the Heat's season and send the Hornets into an elimination game on Friday night against either Orlando or Philadelphia.
The Magic visit the 76ers on Wednesday to decide the No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference, followed by a West elimination game between Golden State and the Los Angeles Clippers.
The play-in ends Friday with two games to decide which teams will take on the No. 1 seeds — Oklahoma City in the West, Detroit in the East. The Warriors-Clippers winner will visit Phoenix to decide which team plays the Thunder, and the Hornets will be at the loser of Wednesday's Orlando-Philadelphia game to decide which team plays the Pistons.
— Avdija scores 41, sends Blazers to playoffs
— Heat furious over how Adebayo got injured
— Amazon Prime has late ‘technical difficulties’
— Doncic, Reaves still out indefinitely, Lakers say
— Thunder hope comforts of home help repeat quest
— Heat equipment manager needs organ transplants
— Natalie Sago the 3rd female ref picked for playoffs
— All eyes on Giannis' future ... after Doc steps down
— The view from Vegas says the West is the best
7:30 p.m. EDT — Orlando at Philadelphia (Prime Video)
10 p.m. EDT — Golden State at LA Clippers (Prime Video)
7:30 p.m. EDT — Charlotte at Orlando-Philadelphia loser (Prime Video)
10 p.m. EDT — Golden State-LA Clippers winner at Phoenix (Prime Video)
1 p.m. EDT — Game 1, Toronto at Cleveland (Prime Video)
3:30 p.m. EDT — Game 1, Minnesota at Denver (Prime Video)
6 p.m. — Game 1, Atlanta at New York (Prime Video)
8:30 p.m. — Game 1, Houston at LA Lakers (ABC)
1 p.m. EDT — Game 1, Orlando-Philadelphia winner at Boston (ABC)
3:30 p.m. EDT — Game 1, TBD at Oklahoma City (ABC)
6:30 p.m. EDT — Game 1, TBD at Detroit (NBC/Peacock)
9 p.m. EDT — Game 1, Portland at San Antonio (NBC/Peacock)
Oklahoma City (+125) is favored to win the NBA title, according to BetMGM Sportsbook.
The Thunder are followed by San Antonio (+450), Boston (+550), Denver (+1000), Cleveland (+1600) and New York (+2000).
Detroit, the No. 1 seed in the East, is +2000.
The Los Angeles Lakers were +2500 before Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves got hurt; they’re +25000 now.
— Wednesday and Friday: NBA play-in tournament.
— Saturday and Sunday: NBA playoff series openers.
— May 2, 3 or 4: Conference semifinals begin.
— May 10: NBA draft lottery.
— May 10-17: NBA draft combine.
— May 17 or 19: Eastern Conference finals begin on ESPN and ABC.
— May 18 or 20: Western Conference finals begin on NBC and Peacock.
— June 3: Game 1, NBA Finals on ABC. (Other finals dates: June 5, June 8, June 10, June 13, June 16 and June 19).
— June 23: Round 1, NBA draft
— June 24: Round 2, NBA draft
— There has now been at least one game decided by five points or fewer in each of the first seven play-in tournaments. In 33 total play-in games entering Wednesday, 13 have seen a team win by no more than five points.
— Miami's Tyler Herro (178 points) has now passed Washington's Trae Young (166) as the all-time play-in tournament scoring leader. Golden State's Stephen Curry (33.8 per game) is the play-in scoring leader per game, among those with more than one game played in the tournament's history.
— Home teams are now 21-11 in the play-in tournament, not counting Portland’s “home” win over Memphis in the bubble in 2020.
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James looks to make a pass during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Utah Jazz, Sunday, April 12, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jayne Kamin-Oncea)
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) shoots against the Los Angeles Clippers during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, April 12, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
BEIRUT (AP) — Jawad Younes, 11, and his cousins were playing soccer in the lot between their houses, as they often did. His little brother, 4-year-old Mehdi, had joined them but grew tired, so Jawad took him home and handed him off to their mother before returning to the game. Minutes later, an Israeli strike came.
The target was Jawad's uncle's home. The blast shook neighboring buildings and threw Jawad's siblings at home to the ground. As their mother, Malak Meslmani, scrambled to help them up, she could think only of Jawad.
“I was pulling my children off the floor in the house, but as I was running to pick them up, I screamed, ‘Jawad,’” she said. ”My heart told me.”
Her son was instantly killed in the March 27 Israeli strike in Saksakieh. So was one of his cousins — so close they were more like brothers. Several other children were wounded.
Jawad's uncle also was killed. He was an interior design engineer; Jawad wanted to be an engineer like him. Meslmani called him a civilian. But like many Shiite families in southern Lebanon, the family were loyal supporters of the militant group and political party Hezbollah, which formed in the 1980s to fight Israel’s occupation of the area.
Jawad and his cousin are among 172 children killed — of more than 2,100 people in all — by Israel's strikes in the six weeks of renewed war between the country and Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Israel has often struck alleged Hezbollah militants or officials in their homes without warning, frequently in areas far from the front line when they are with their families, in apartment buildings surrounded by uninvolved neighbors. The Israeli military rarely names the targets of its strikes but says it takes measures to minimize civilian casualties — including children — and blames Hezbollah members for mixing with the general population. The families of children killed accuse Israel of committing war crimes because of the large number of civilian casualties.
At least two Israeli civilians — both adults — and 13 soldiers have been killed in the current war with Hezbollah, according to figures from Israel. One of the civilians was killed by mistaken Israeli fire.
In response to questions from The Associated Press, the Israeli military didn't deny that children have been killed in its Lebanon strikes but said it has targeted Hezbollah facilities and militants. The army says it's killed hundreds of Hezbollah operatives but has provided little evidence to support the claim.
Under international law governing armed conflict, it's never legal to directly target civilians, but collateral damage — harm to civilians when striking a military target — is allowed if it is proportional to the anticipated military gains of any given strike.
The Israeli military told AP in a statement that its strikes follow the law, including “the principles of distinction, proportionality, and the taking of precautions.”
Charles Trumbull, an assistant University of South Carolina law professor who studies the law and ethics of armed conflict, said it's difficult to assess whether the proportionality threshold was met without knowing the strike targets and whether the military knew children were present.
“To the extent that they knew that children were likely to be harmed or killed in these strikes, and as an ethical matter, absolutely I think that should affect the calculus,” he said. “Just because certain strikes might not violate the law on conflict doesn’t mean that they’re not concerning or problematic or that they are morally justified.”
At 2 a.m. March 12, Taline Shehab — who would have turned 4 last month — was sleeping when missiles tore into an apartment above hers in the family's building in Aramoun, about 20 km (12 miles) south of Beirut, causing it to collapse. Taline and her father died; her mother was critically wounded.
Aramoun is a religiously mixed area that was generally considered safe, though it had been targeted by airstrikes in the previous Israel-Hezbollah war, in 2024.
Taline’s father, Mohamad, was a drone operator and video producer who often worked with the Lebanese army and on high-profile television productions. He and his wife, Nathalie, ran a fashion company; Taline appeared regularly on its social media.
“They were a very close family. Their daily life revolved around their daughter,” said Ali Shehab, Mohamad's brother.
Taline “was full of personality,” he said. “She was very attached to her father. She loved being around him" and "didn’t like to share him with anyone.”
He comforts himself with the thought that “maybe Mohammed and Taline, because they are so attached to each other, God chose them both.”
Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, who's worked extensively in Gaza and Lebanon and runs an initiative treating some of the most seriously war-wounded children at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, said that, like Taline, most of the cases he has seen are “children being crushed underneath the rubble of their own homes.”
Ten-year-old Zeinab al-Jabali used to tag along wherever her father went: the corner store, the mountains around their village in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
Now, he sleeps in the Beirut hospital where doctors are treating his wife and three older daughters, all wounded in the strike that killed Zeinab.
War has shadowed most of Hassan al-Jabali’s life. In 1982, his brother — then 10, like Zeinab — was killed by an Israeli missile.
Al-Jabali made a living selling mouneh, or preserved foods such as raisins and dried herbs, and worked for his cousin's factory producing laban, or yogurt.
On March 5, al-Jabali’s wife and daughters were preparing for iftar, the meal ending the daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan, at his wife’s sister’s house when the airstrike hit it.
Al-Jabali acknowledged his brother-in-law — who was killed — “in the past was with the resistance,” referring to Hezbollah.
“But they struck him at home, in a house full of children, full of girls,” said al-Jabali, who heard the blast from elsewhere in the village and found a scene of carnage when he rushed to check on his family.
He said his wife still doesn’t know Zeinab is dead; he’s afraid the grief would endanger her recovery.
In response to questions about the strikes that killed Jawad, Taline, and Zeinab, the Israeli military didn't give details about the intended targets beyond that they were related to Hezbollah.
The military's statement said Israel regrets any civilian harm but that it's operating against Hezbollah, “which attacked the State of Israel under Iranian backing.”
Many Lebanese have blamed Hezbollah for pulling their country into the war when it fired missiles across the border March 2, two days after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. But for others, the devastation from Israeli strikes has strengthened their support.
“We are now holding onto the resistance more than any time before,” said Meslmani, Jawad's mother.
Despite Israeli army notices for residents in large swathes of southern Lebanon to flee, many in their town of Saksakieh stayed. Displaced people from farther south took refuge there. Life felt almost normal before the strike that killed Jawad.
Now, Meslmani visits his grave in a small cemetery overlooking a mountain vista, where she can hear warplanes roar overhead.
“I remember everything," she said. "How he used to eat and drink, how he used to play, how he would get dressed and fix his beautiful hair.”
Since he was killed, the planes no longer bother her.
“The most precious thing, my heart, is gone," she said. "What more can they do?”
Associated Press journalists Malak Harb in Beirut and Koral Saeed in Abu Snan, Israel, contributed to this report.
Malak Meslmani, the mother of Jawad Younes, 11, who was killed on March 27, 2026 in an Israeli airstrike, visits her son's grave in Saksakieh village, south Lebanon, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Hassan, the father of Zeinab al-Jabali, 10, who was killed on March 5, 2026, in an Israeli airstrike that hit her house in Libbaya village, east of Lebanon, shows a picture of his daughter, Zainab, during an interview at the office of doctor Ghassan Abu Sitta Fund, in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
FILE — Malak Meslmani, center, the mother of Jawad Younes, 11, who was was killed in an Israeli airstrike, mourns over her son's body during his funeral procession in Saksakieh village, south Lebanon, Saturday, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
