Canadians could make some noise in the NBA post-season

This is an excerpt from The Buzzer, which is CBC Sports' daily email newsletter. Stay up to speed on what's happening in sports by subscribing here.

This summer in Paris, the Canadian men's basketball team will make its first Olympic appearance since 2000, when future two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash carried the team to the quarterfinals in Sydney.

But first, some of the players hoping to lead Canada to its first Olympic basketball medal in 88 years enter the gauntlet of the NBA post-season. That begins tonight as the play-in tournament for the final two spots in each conference tips off.

Here's how the play-in tournament works: While the top six finishers in each conference rest up for the first round of the playoffs proper, the teams that placed seventh through 10th compete for the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds in a series of elimination games over the next few days. The seventh- and eighth-place teams square off, with the winner advancing directly to the playoffs as the No. 7 seed. The loser can still get the No. 8 seed by beating the survivor of the ninth vs. 10th matchup.

The first round of the Western Conference play-ins takes place tonight, with seventh-place New Orleans hosting the eighth-place Los Angeles Lakers while No. 9 Sacramento hosts No. 10 Golden State. The East play-ins begin tomorrow night with seventh-place Philadelphia hosting eighth-place Miami and No. 9 Chicago hosting No. 10 Atlanta.

The final round for both conferences is on Friday night, followed by the start of the main 16-team playoff bracket on Saturday.

Here's a look at the top Canadian players to watch in the post-season:

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Lu Dort (Oklahoma City Thunder)

SGA keeps getting better and better. Last season, the former 11th-overall draft pick placed fifth in MVP voting and fourth in scoring with a career-high 31.4 points per game (most ever by a Canadian) to help rebuilding OKC reach the play-in. After turning 25 in July, he led the Canadian men's national team to its first Olympic berth in a quarter century and its first major medal since 1936 with a bronze at the World Cup. Most basketball experts agreed the superb two-way guard was the best all-around player in a tournament that included current NBA scoring champion Luka Doncic.

This season, Gilgeous-Alexander's scoring average dipped slightly to 30.1 points. But that ranked third in the league this time, and he played fewer minutes per game than last season. SGA also improved his shooting efficiency while posting career highs in assists (6.2) and steals (2.0) with fewer turnovers. With second-year sidekick Jalen Williams also improving and 7-foot forward Chet Holmgren showing he was worth the No. 2 overall pick after missing his entire rookie season with a foot injury, the young Thunder jumped all the way to the top of the Western Conference, going 57-25 to grab the top seed from defending NBA champion Denver.

OKC features another key young Canadian guard in Dort, a tireless 24-year-old who supplies hard-nosed perimeter defence and a bit of scoring while often guarding the other team's best player. Dort's versatility and physical strength has allowed coach Mark Daigneault to deploy him against stars ranging from bulky Zion Williamson to sinewy Kevin Durant and seemingly anyone in between.

Jamal Murray (Denver Nuggets)

Many Canadian basketball fans were dismayed when Murray skipped last summer's crucial World Cup after helping Denver to the NBA championship as Nikola Jokic's main sidekick. Murray, then 26, was coming off a long playoff run in which he averaged a stellar 26 points and seven assists in 20 games, and it was his first season back from a devastating knee injury that sidelined him for the entire previous season. But Canadians still hoped he'd fulfill his commitment to the national team as it chased an Olympic berth.

Canada got in, but Murray's participation in Paris is no sure thing after he missed 23 regular-season games due to knee, shin and ankle issues. He still hit career highs in points (21.2) and assists (6.5) while shooting more efficiently than ever, and Jokic is poised for his third MVP award in four years after Denver finished second in the Western Conference. But the Nuggets may have made their playoff path tougher by blowing their penultimate game to second-last-place San Antonio (thanks to 34 points by super Spurs rookie Victor Wembanyama), handing the top seed to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's Thunder.