If you lose to the first seed, you still have exactly the same number of weeks with no official games (since first round of the playoffs falls on a Wednesday) -- but you have one extra playoff game.
Nope. If you lose in 1st PO round then you have only
one week without official game, so you have to pay one salary more in comparison to 5th and 8th.
Sat: RS last day
Mon: new week starts now (#13) --
Tue: PO 1st round <-- this game is in new week
Sat: PO 2nd round
Mon: new week starts now (#14) --
Tue: PO final 1st game
Sat: PO final 2nd game
(Sun: PO final 3rd game)
Mon: new week starts now (#1) --
Sat: RS 1st day
Mon: new week starts now (#2) --
However 4th is still better than 5th.