With five nights left in the NBA regular season, five seedings across both conferences remain mathematically live, setting up a final stretch that could send the Los Angeles Lakers into a 5-versus-4 showdown with the Denver Nuggets and push the Orlando Magic into the Eastern Conference’s top six for the first time since 2010.

The Boston Celtics, at 60-17, clinched the East’s top seed Tuesday night with a 118-104 win over the Charlotte Hornets at TD Garden. Cleveland and Milwaukee have locked in the second and third spots, respectively. Below those three, however, the picture remains unsettled. Orlando, New York, Miami and Indiana are bunched within two games of each other for the 4 through 7 seeds, and the difference between an opening-round home series and a Wednesday play-in game could come down to a single tiebreaker.

“We’re not looking past tonight, and that’s not a slogan,” Magic head coach Jamahl Mosley said after Orlando’s 112-99 win over the Atlanta Hawks at Kia Center on Wednesday. “Every night we get one of these is a night the next team has to win two. That’s the math we’re working with.”

Orlando has won eight of its last ten, fueled by the return from a six-week ankle injury of forward Paolo Banchero, who scored 31 points against Atlanta on 11-of-17 shooting. The 23-year-old’s reintegration has coincided with the longest sustained stretch of efficient half-court offense of the team’s season, according to data circulated to coaches by the league office and reviewed by team analysts.

The Western Conference has produced even sharper compression. Oklahoma City sealed the top seed last week. Behind the Thunder, however, the Nuggets, Lakers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Memphis Grizzlies and Houston Rockets are separated by 2.5 games for the 2 through 6 slots. The Lakers’ resurgent late-season push — they have won nine of their last 11 with LeBron James playing 32 minutes a night and rookie point guard Kasparas Jakucionis posting a 24-point, 11-assist line on Tuesday in Phoenix — has briefly altered the conventional bracket math.

“They look like a team that doesn’t care what the seed says,” Houston head coach Ime Udoka said of Los Angeles after the Rockets’ Monday loss in Crypto.com Arena. “You can see how they want to play in May. We have to be ready for that, whoever ends up where.”

Three play-in spots in each conference are also being contested. In the East, the Detroit Pistons — who have not appeared in the postseason since 2019 — are clinging to the 9 seed and a one-game lead over the Chicago Bulls. The Pistons, led by Cade Cunningham’s 22.4 points and 7.6 assists per game over the second half, host Brooklyn on Friday in what coach J.B. Bickerstaff called “the biggest regular-season home game we’ve had in nearly a decade.” In the West, the Sacramento Kings and the Phoenix Suns are jockeying for the 10 seed, with the loser likely to fall out of the bracket entirely.

The league’s MVP race, until recently considered a two-man contest between Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Denver’s Nikola Jokic, has tightened on the strength of late surges by Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards. Gilgeous-Alexander, who entered Wednesday averaging 31.6 points on 54.2 percent shooting, remains the betting favorite, but several voters who spoke on background said Jokic’s recent triple-double run — six in his last eight games — had reopened the conversation.

“It’s the closest top-of-the-ballot field we’ve had since the LeBron-Durant years,” said Charlotte McNamara, a basketball writer with the Athletic Sports Group who holds a vote. “I have four names within striking distance, and the last week of play absolutely will matter to how that finalizes.”

Health, as in every postseason, will shape the bracket as much as standings. The Bucks confirmed Wednesday that forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, who left Monday’s game in Miami with right calf tightness, would be evaluated again Friday and was unlikely to play Saturday at home against Atlanta. New York’s Jalen Brunson, who has been managing a sprained left wrist since late March, remained listed as questionable for Thursday’s home game against the Pacers. The Knicks’ rotation around Brunson has been thinned further by the season-ending knee surgery announced two weeks ago for guard Mitchell Robinson.

Several teams in the West, meanwhile, have begun load-managing players with locked-in seeding. Oklahoma City head coach Mark Daigneault confirmed that Gilgeous-Alexander would not play in the second night of a back-to-back this weekend, and Thunder forward Chet Holmgren is expected to rest at least one of the team’s remaining games. “Rhythm matters, but health matters more,” Daigneault said.

The league’s expanded postseason calendar, which kicks off the play-in tournament on Tuesday, April 14, gives teams a marginal window of additional rest. The first round of the playoffs is set to begin Saturday, April 18, with the NBA office expected to release the full bracket and broadcast schedule within hours of the regular season’s conclusion Sunday night.

For now, the league’s competition committee said all eyes were on the final five games. Commissioner Adam Silver, speaking briefly to reporters at a midweek owners’ gathering in New York, said the late-season jostling reflected “exactly the kind of stakes the regular season is supposed to produce.” Team executives said additional roster decisions, including playoff-eligibility cutoff confirmations for several recently signed two-way players, would be announced before Sunday’s slate.