2026 Playoffs RD2

RD1 Recap

Our first round one of the new rules era featured no actual upsets, but we almost had one! Higher seeds SCRM and CHMK made easy work of TRUO and SBUK respectively, so farewell guys and see you in the offseason! The other two matchups were closer.

7 SWMP vs 10 KSKT: While we said “…if there’s a dark horse in the first round, KSKT is it. However, in the matchup against Jalen Williams and Zach LaVine-less SWMP,  KSKT folded on Sunday as they played a weak week of games, putting up less than optimal Games Played—only 20 GP to SWMP’s 27—with Cade Cunningham sitting on Monday as well. KSKT did suffer from seven injured players, many of them springing up only this past week, but it was likely the lineup mismanagement that ended up giving SWMP an easy win.

8 BUFF vs 9 MELO: This one was our possible upset, as BUFF headed into Sunday down 3-6. However, BUFF had eight players slated to play versus MELO’s six—for a total GP of 28 versus 25—and Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges led the full BUFF lineup to a close 5-4 victory. Andrew Wiggins blocked seven shots on the week, proving himself a real hero, as BUFF only won BLK by two.

RD2 Matchups

• 1 ILCN vs 8 BUFF
• 2 FJUB vs 7 SWMP
• 3 SQSQ vs 6 CHMK
• 4 SPDE vs 5 SCRM

The power teams hit the court this week, and we’ll see if they used their week off wisely. Under our old rules, these eight would have been the playoff teams, since we had no upsets in round one. Let's take a quick look at the round two matchups.

Top seeded ILCN should take care of BUFF pretty easily but ILCN might be missing Donovan Mitchell this week. Also, using last week’s stats, it would have been merely a close 5-4 win for ILCN. Could a huge upset by BUFF be in order?

Over in the #2 versus #7 seeded matchup, the big question is if FJUB plays Trae Young this week, as Young is set to make his Wizards debut on on Thursday. Could those crucial Young assists help take down Nikola Jokic and Jalen Johnson?

We’re keeping a close eye on Game of the Week: SQSQ versus CHMK! This matchup got a lot more interesting with Giannis Antetokounmpo back to playing on Monday night. Can SQSQ and new acquisition Bam Adebayo fend off a suddenly much more dangerous CHMK team?

And in our last round two matchup, SPDE versus SCRM will be a grudge match between the team that pushed the other out of a first round bye. SPDE is fully healthy while SCRM picked up yet another injured centered this week—Dereck Lively II (see below)—so I guess just having Anthony Davis on the bench wasn’t enough! For SCRM, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander did make two healthy appearances last week but SGA is already out for this Tuesday game. Can the defending champs make this a fight versus SPDE?

Offers Report

SCRM grabbed Jakob Poeltl, dropping rookie Ryan Kalkbrenner in the process. GM Jordan also picked up Dereck Lively II as a grab and stash, after TRUO dropped him in favor of Javon Small. Interesting…

FJUB swapped shooters, going from Julian Champagnie to Max Christie, a savvy move with Dallas in full tank mode.