Klay Thompson has played in 33 NBA Finals games. Been to the playoffs nine times. Has four championship rings in his collection. He knows how the big stage feels.

Don’t tell him the play-in tournament doesn’t matter.

The play-in tournament ends tonight with a pair of elimination games, win-or-go-home matchups that will have a Game 7 feel to them. In the Eastern Conference, it’s Miami going to Atlanta. And in the Western Conference, Thompson and Dallas visit Memphis. The winners go to the playoffs. The losers are finished.

“I know it’s not the NBA Finals or conference finals,” Thompson, in his first season with the Mavericks, said after Dallas extended its season Wednesday with a win at Sacramento that eliminated the Kings. “But shoot, we’re still alive and a lot of teams aren’t.”

That’s true. Right now, 14 teams are in the playoffs, 12 teams are done for the season and four are left to decide the last two playoff spots.

“I always say it’s like March Madness,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said. “Win or go home.”

For Atlanta and Memphis, these games are a second chance after both lost games where playoff berths could have been clinched on Tuesday. For Miami and Dallas, these games are a last chance to salvage a season and make a little bit of NBA history in the process.

No play-in team has ever won two road games in the same tournament, and this format — now in its fifth year, not counting a one-game play-in that was needed inside the bubble in 2020 — has never seen teams that entered as the 10th seed get into the actual playoffs.

Miami and Dallas can change that tonight.

“We’re only halfway there,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.

The Heat and Mavericks will be trying to stave off elimination for the second time in three days, after both got road wins Wednesday to keep hope alive; Miami ousted Chicago, Dallas ousted Sacramento. The Hawks and Grizzlies — both of whom finished eighth in the standings, which doesn’t guarantee a playoff berth anymore — wasted chances to make the playoffs on Tuesday; Atlanta lost at Orlando, Memphis lost at Golden State.

“We put ourselves in a position to have two games to get into the playoffs,” Hawks guard Trae Young said after his team lost to Orlando in a game that decided the No. 7 seed in the East. “Us being in the 8 seed, if this was the old school we’d already be in the playoffs. I’m glad they give us an opportunity to go home and get another chance. ... That’s pretty much it. We’ve got another chance.”

It’ll be a quick turnaround for tonight’s winners. The Atlanta-Miami winner opens the playoffs at East No. 1 Cleveland on Sunday night, while the Memphis-Dallas winner opens the playoffs at West No. 1 and top overall seed Oklahoma City on Sunday afternoon.

They won’t be complaining.

“You’re looking at the bigger goal, the bigger picture, which is the playoffs,” ex-Warrior Andrew Wiggins of Miami said. “We’ve got to do whatever we can. Whatever we’ve got to do, we’ve got to do in that game.”