A Canadian's guide to the NBA playoffs

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The NBA exhibition, er, regular season is finally over. Now maybe we can set aside the endless debates about tanking, draft reform, injuries and load management that have dominated the discourse over the last several months and focus on some actual basketball. (Please?)

With that in mind, here are a few things for Canadian fans to follow in the post-season, which tips off tonight with the first two play-in games.

4 Canadians in the play-ins

First, a quick refresher on how the play-ins work.

The top six finishers in both the Eastern and Western Conferences earned a direct ticket to the 16-team playoff bracket. The teams that finished seventh through 10th will now battle for the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds in their respective conference. The seventh- and eighth-place teams play each other for the No. 7 seed, and the loser of that game faces the winner of the ninth vs. 10th matchup for the No. 8 seed.

The games take place tonight, Wednesday and Friday. In a perfect world, both 7 vs. 8 games would be tonight, then the 9 vs. 10 games on Wednesday and the final play-ins for the 8 seeds on Friday. That would make the most sense.

But God knows the NBA is not perfect, so instead we're getting No. 9 Miami vs. No. 10 Charlotte and No. 7 Portland vs. No. 8 Phoenix tonight, followed by No. 7 Orlando vs. No. 8 Philadelphia and No.  9 Golden State vs. the No. 10 Los Angeles Clippers tomorrow night.

Two impact Canadian players will square off in the Phoenix vs. Portland game tonight at 10 p.m. ET. Gritty forward Dillon Brooks is the second-leading scorer for the Suns, averaging 20.2 points,