How Does the NBA Playoff Work?

The NBA playoffs are a best-of-seven elimination tournament among 16 teams that qualify each year. Eight teams from each conference qualify for the playoffs.

Introduction

The NBA playoff is a best-of-seven series played between the eight first-ranked teams in each conference—Eastern and Western—with the conference winners advancing to the NBA Finals. The first two rounds of the NBA playoff are single-elimination, meaning that a team only needs one loss to be eliminated and sent home for the summer. The subsequent rounds—the Conference Finals and the NBA Finals—are best-of-seven series, so a team must lose four games total to be eliminated.

The NBA’s Regular Season

During the NBA’s regular season, each team plays 82 games. These games are used to decide seeding for the playoffs. The team with the best record in each conference is seeded first, and the team with the worst record is seeded eighth. The other six teams are seeded based on their records. For example, the team with the second-best record would be seeded second, and so on.

The NBA’s Playoff Format

The NBA’s Playoff Format
The NBA’s playoff format is a bit complicated, but we’ll try to explain it as simply as possible.

In the NBA, there are two conferences – the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. Each conference has three divisions.

The playoff format is a bit different for each conference. In the Eastern Conference, the divisional winners are seeded 1-3 and the team with the next best record is seeded 4. The first round of the playoffs is then a best-of-seven series between seeds 1 and 8, 2 and 7, 3 and 6, and 4 and 5.

In the Western Conference, things are a bit different. The divisional winners are again seeded 1-3, but the team with the next best record in each conference is seeded 4 regardless of its division. The first round of the playoffs in the Western Conference is then a best-of-seven series between seeds 1 and 8, 2 and 7, 3 and 6, and 4 and 5.

The second round of the playoffs (the Conference Semifinals) is a best-of-seven series between the winners of each first round series. In other words, in the Eastern Conference it would be seed 1 vs seed 4 and seed 2 vs seed 3; in the Western Conference it would be seed 1 vs seed 5 and seed 2 vs seed 6.

The third round of the playoffs (the Conference Finals) is also a best-of-seven series between the winners of each second round series; so in other words, it would be Eastern Conference winner vs Western Conference winner in one series, and vice versa in another series.

Finally, the fourth round of playoffs (the NBA Finals) is also a best-of-seven series between the two conference champions.

We hope this has helped to clear things up!

The NBA Finals

The NBA Finals is the championship series of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Eastern and Western conference champions play a best-of-seven game series to determine the league champion. The winning team of the NBA Finals receives the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy, which was named in honor of former NBA commissioner Larry O’Brien.

The NBA Finals has been played at the conclusion of every NBA and Basketball Association of America season in history, dating back to 1947. Most often, the two teams that make it to the Finals are determined by playoffs that take place throughout the end of the regular season and into early June.

Conclusion

The NBA playoffs are a best-of-seven elimination tournament among the sixteen teams that qualified for the playoffs. The tournament is held each spring, with the winner crowned the NBA champion.

In each round, the highest remaining seed in each conference is matched against the lowest remaining seed. The winners of those series advance to the next round and play another series. This process continues until one team remains in each conference, at which point the conference finalists face each other in the NBA Finals.

The champion of the NBA Finals is crowned the NBA champion and receives the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy.