How Does the NBA Playoff Work?
The NBA playoff system is a complex process that can be hard to understand. This blog will help explain how the NBA playoff system works.
Introduction
The National Basketball Association (NBA) postseason is a competition among the best teams in the NBA to determine the league champion. The playoffs follow a tournament format, and culminate in the NBA Finals, a best-of-seven series between the conference champions.
The NBA playoffs begin in April each year, after the conclusion of the regular season. The regular season is a 82-game affair, in which each team plays all other teams twice (home and away). The playoff bracket is then determined by seed: that is, the team with the best record in each conference (Eastern and Western), regardless of division, earns the top seed.
The first two rounds of the playoffs are series played between two teams, with each team playing up to seven games. The first team to win four games wins the series; if both teams split the first six games, a final seventh game is played to determine a winner. In each conference, seed Nos. 1 and 2 earn byes into Round 2; they await winners of Round 1 matches between seeds No. 3/6 and 4/5.
Conference Finals are then played between Round 2’s survivors; again, these are best-of-seven matches. Finally, NBA Finals are held between the Eastern Conference champion and Western Conference champion; these are also best-of-seven matches.
An important note about seeding: matchups for Rounds 1 and 2 are always done by seed – that is to say, No. 1 plays No.. 4 or 5 (whichever emerges from Round 1), regardless of conference affiliation. However, for Conference Finals and NBA Finals matchups, seed becomes secondary to conference affiliation – that is to say: whichever Eastern Conference team has won its way through to Conference Finals will play whichever Western Conference team has done likewise; likewise for NBA Finals.
The Regular Season
The NBA season is 82 games long, and it begins in late October. Each team plays every other team in its conference four times and every team in the opposite conference three times. The remaining games are filled in according to a pre-determined schedule. For example, if the Los Angeles Lakers are playing the Boston Celtics, they will play two games at home, two games away, and one game at a neutral site.
The Playoffs
The NBA playoffs are a best-of-seven elimination tournament annually held after the NBA’s regular season to determine the league’s champion. The finalists from each conference (the Western Conference and the Eastern Conference), compete in a best-of-seven series.Eight teams from each conference qualify for the playoffs. This involves the top three seeds getting a bye to the second round, and the next five seeds playing each other in the first round.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the NBA playoffs are a best-of-seven series played between the eight best teams in each conference. The playoffs follow a 2-2-1-1-1 format, meaning that the team with homecourt advantage plays games one, two, five, and seven at home. The first team to win four games advances to the next round.
