Overview:
The NBA Playoffs 2026 Western Conference First Round tip off with high-stakes matchups, rising young stars, and championship ambitions on full display. Defending champions the Oklahoma City Thunder headline a stacked Western Conference bracket, while contenders like the Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Lakers, and emerging San Antonio Spurs look to make deep postseason runs. From injury comebacks to heated rivalries, the opening round promises drama across every series.
Tue 21 Apr
(ABC-Australia) The first round of the NBA playoffs are officially underway with a series of game ones taking place across the league.
If you’re ever wanting to dream up an epic playoffs, you’d likely ask for a mix of heroic returns from injuries, stars performing at the absolute peak of their powers and a little bit of bad blood thrown in there. This year’s first round has all these elements.
A host of young stars and teams are making their playoff debuts, while seasoned veterans are hoping to cement legacies. Everyone is hunting Oklahoma City, last year’s NBA champion.
Here is what to watch out for in each of the first-round series.
(1) Oklahoma City Thunder vs (8) Phoenix Suns
SEASON SERIES: Oklahoma City won 3-2
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-21/basketball-nba-playoffs-first-round-series-analysis/106550466
The Thunder has backed up last season’s championship with as dominant a season as you’d like to see out of a defending champion.
OKC enters the playoffs as the hot favourite to go back-to-back, but recent history has shown that the playoffs don’t always pan out as expected for return champs, with no team having defended its title since Golden State in 2018.
Having battled injuries all season long, the Thunder finally has a full rotation to call on for the start of the post-season and will use this series to tune up for the rest of the playoffs.
The Thunder finished the regular season with the seventh-best offence and the best defence and the miserly defence will once again be its calling card.
OKC faces a surprise-packet Phoenix team that ousted Golden State in the play-in game to pick up the eighth seed.
Everything about this series suggests the Suns are overmatched, but what they lack in talent, they make up for with a boatload of heart.
Phoenix ranked 17th in the league in offence this season, and that lack of scoring firepower means you’re dead on arrival against the Thunder.
The Suns’ best offensive players are all perimeter operators. The only problem with that is the Thunder is blessed with perhaps the league’s best suite of perimeter defenders. That is a nightmare match-up.
(2) San Antonio Spurs vs (7) Portland Trail Blazers
SEASON SERIES: San Antonio won 2-1
San Antonio’s rise from a non-playoff team last season to legit contender this season is one of the stories of the season.
Luckily for this Spurs core, they will make their playoff debut against a team in Portland, whose core also has no playoff reps.
The Spurs went 24-4 after the All-Star break, including a 22-2 record in games where Victor Wembanyama played, and also posted the NBA’s best net rating in that period.
Wembanyama is already the league’s most impactful defender and in possessions where he is on the floor, San Antonio’s opponents score at a rate only marginally better than the worst offensive team in the NBA, Brooklyn.
Portland is also a feel-good story this season, and thrust itself into the seventh seed courtesy of a superhuman play-in performance from Deni Avdija.
Avdija was at the heart of everything good offensively for the Blazers this season, and ranked third in the NBA on free throws per game.
Avdija has averaged 31.7 points and eight assists in three outings against the Spurs this season, and also shot over 52 per cent on threes, well above his season average of 31.8 per cent from long range.
The Blazers will also turn to defensive stoppers Toumani Camara and Jrue Holiday to handle the Spurs star guard trio of Stephon Castle, De’Aaron Fox and Dylan Harper.
(3) Denver Nuggets vs (6) Minnesota Timberwolves
SEASON SERIES: Denver won 3-1
In what feels like one of the better Western Conference rivalries, the Nuggets and Wolves face off in a series for the third time in four years, with the current ledger reading 1-1.
Minnesota finished the regular season with a whimper, going 8-7 in its last 15 games, with most of those coming in the absence of the injured Anthony Edwards.
Edwards is back for the Nuggets series, but just how healthy he is remains to be seen. If he’s not near 100 per cent, the Wolves are virtually dead on arrival.
Denver went through its own malaise during the regular season, with that coinciding with injuries to Nikola Jokic, Aaron Gordon and Payton Watson, but has gotten healthy at the right time.
The Nuggets went 13-2 in their last 15 games, and crucially got some minutes into the Jokic-Gordon-Jamal Murray line-up that blew the doors off opponents.
Jokic has put together one of the greatest seasons in league history, becoming the first player in NBA history to lead the league in both rebounds and assists per game.
Minnesota’s four-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert will once again be tasked with the Jokic assignment, and it’ll really be all about damage control.
Julius Randle was a pleasant surprise for the Wolves during last year’s playoffs and will need to be just as efficient in this series if Minnesota is to advance.
(4) Los Angeles Lakers vs (5) Houston Rockets
SEASON SERIES: Los Angeles won 2-1
What a treat it is to get another Kevin Durant-LeBron James series in the playoffs for the first time since the 2018 NBA Finals.
The Lakers come into the series decimated by injuries with both Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves sidelined, meaning it is up to James, 41, to carry the load for the umpteenth time in his 23-season career.
James had looked as spritely as a 41-year-old can look prior to the Dončić and Reaves injuries as he settled into being the third option for the Lakers, and will have to summon something from his prime years to keep Los Angeles alive for long enough for at least Dončić to return after visiting Spain to treat his hamstring.
Houston owns the eighth-best offence for the entire season, but has slipped to 13th after the All-Star break, and the Lakers will hope that slippage allows them to hang around, even while understrength.
James has shot just 30.9 per cent from three-point range this season, his lowest mark since the 2015-16 season, and he’ll need his three to have a revival to be able to go blow-for-blow with Durant and the Rockets.
Houston, while amassing more than 50 wins during the regular season, has been one of the league’s poorest teams in late-game situations.
The NBA defines “clutch” minutes as situations in the last five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime where the margin is either five points or less, and the Rockets come into the playoffs as the seventh-worst team in such situations.
Offence gets tougher in the playoffs and how efficient Houston is able to be on that end will determine just how far it can go in the post-season.
