The exacta bet has long been the crown jewel of horse racing, based in large part on the inherent prestige—and lucrative payout—that comes with the acumen to not only correctly select the winner of the race,

The season before that, No. 2 Boston faced No. 8 Miami in the East, and No. 1 Denver faced the No. 7 Los Angeles Lakers in the West. In fact, the 1-seed in both conferences combined has only made the conference finals four times, dating back to 2020 (2024 Boston, 2023 Denver, 2022 Miami, 2020 Los Angeles Lakers).

It took until the final day of the regular season, but the NBA play-in tournament picture is finally set after Sunday's action.