Two of the NBA’s four second-round series will reach a potential closeout Tuesday night, with the Denver Nuggets hosting the Los Angeles Clippers at Ball Arena holding a 3-1 lead and the top-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves trying to finish off the Oklahoma City Thunder at Target Center, where Minnesota has not lost a playoff game since the opening round. A potential third closeout, the Eastern Conference matchup between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Milwaukee Bucks, was pushed to a Game 7 over the weekend and is now scheduled for Wednesday in Cleveland.

The Nuggets, who have lost only twice in eleven postseason games and dispatched the Memphis Grizzlies in seven during the first round, can secure their second conference finals trip in three years with a win at home. Tip-off against the Clippers is set for 10 p.m. Eastern on TNT. Nikola Jokic, who recorded a triple-double in Saturday’s Game 4 win in Los Angeles, has averaged 30.5 points, 13 rebounds and 10.3 assists across the series and is one assist short of the Hakeem Olajuwon record for most postseason triple-doubles before a player’s 32nd birthday.

“He is the most efficient offensive player I have ever seen, and that is not an opinion I came to lightly,” said John Hollinger, a former NBA executive and senior writer at The Athletic. “What changes for Denver in the conference finals, regardless of who they draw, is whether Jamal Murray can keep the second-tier defenders honest. Saturday he could, and that’s why the series is on the brink.”

Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue, who declined Sunday to discuss the availability of forward Kawhi Leonard for Game 5, told reporters at the team’s shootaround Tuesday morning that Leonard would play but was “managing” a right knee strain that the team has acknowledged since the second round began. Leonard, who has averaged 21.8 points across the series on 41 percent shooting, was visibly limping in the fourth quarter of Game 4 and did not participate in Monday’s voluntary practice in Denver. Guard James Harden, who has shot 30 percent from the field across the last three games, is also expected to start.

In Minneapolis, the Thunder face the harder math. Down 3-2 after surrendering home-court advantage in last week’s opener and dropping Sunday’s Game 4 in Oklahoma City, the No. 4 seed will need to win at Target Center on Tuesday and again at home on Thursday to extend a postseason that began with a first-round sweep of Sacramento. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who poured in a career-playoff-high 42 points in Sunday’s win, told reporters Monday that he expected the Timberwolves to “throw a wall” at him and that the burden of shot-creation would shift more toward Chet Holmgren and reserve guard Cason Wallace.

“We are a young team and a young rotation, and the postseason has been a lot of firsts for a lot of guys,” Gilgeous-Alexander said at the team hotel Monday afternoon. “But the room is calm. We have done the harder thing before. We have to do it twice more.”

Minnesota head coach Chris Finch said his staff had spent Monday “tightening the screws” on defensive rotations against the Thunder’s pick-and-roll game, and that center Rudy Gobert, who has recorded a double-double in each game of the series, would shoulder additional minutes if needed. Anthony Edwards, who has been held below his series average in three of the past four games, was a full participant in Monday’s practice and is expected to start. Game 6 tips at 9:30 p.m. Eastern on TNT, following the Denver-Los Angeles game.

The Cavaliers and Bucks, who play their winner-take-all game Wednesday, traveled separately to Cleveland on Monday. Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell, who has averaged 33.4 points across the series and scored 39 in Sunday’s win, said the team was “treating Wednesday like Game 1 of a series, not Game 7 of one.” Milwaukee head coach Doc Rivers, in remarks released through the team’s media relations staff, said Giannis Antetokounmpo had been cleared without restriction after a brief hamstring tightness scare during Sunday’s loss.

The Eastern Conference’s other matchup, the No. 1 Boston Celtics against the No. 6 Indiana Pacers, will resume on Wednesday at TD Garden with the Celtics holding a 3-1 lead. Boston head coach Joe Mazzulla, asked Tuesday morning whether forward Jaylen Brown’s right hamstring strain would limit him in Game 5, said Brown had been “the most stable he has been all postseason” through the weekend’s overtime win in Indianapolis.

ESPN and TNT figures released Monday showed the postseason producing the highest second-round audiences in nine years. The Pacers-Celtics overtime game on Sunday drew 7.4 million viewers, the largest Sunday afternoon NBA broadcast since 2017, and the Cavaliers-Bucks Game 6 averaged 6.2 million on ABC. League officials said combined audiences were running 19 percent ahead of the 2025 second round.

Major League Baseball, in its second month of the regular season, opened Tuesday with the Detroit Tigers (21-9) and Cincinnati Reds (20-10) still leading the AL Central and NL Central by five-and-a-half and four games, respectively. Tigers right-hander Tarik Skubal, who has lowered his ERA to 1.68 across six starts, takes the mound Tuesday night in Cleveland against the Guardians. The Los Angeles Dodgers, 21-10 atop the NL West, open a four-game series in San Diego on Thursday.

The New York Yankees, at 11-20 after dropping two of three to Tampa Bay over the weekend, placed reliever Tommy Kahnle on the 15-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation. Manager Aaron Boone, asked whether the front office had communicated any timetable for change, said only that “everyone in this building is treating it the same way: one game at a time.”

“The Yankees are not going to fix what is wrong with them in May,” said Layla Adesina, a baseball analyst at the Athletic. “The decisions that matter now are about July and the trade deadline.”

NBA officials said the conference finals television windows and Finals broadcast schedule would be released within 24 hours of the second round’s conclusion, and that the league was preparing contingency dates for both East and West conference final openers should either Game 7 push the bracket later into the week.