Guide to the NBA Playoffs

✧ The NBA playoffs are a best-of-seven tournament held every year after the regular season ends. Whoever wins is the league's champion for that year.

✧ The top eight teams in each conference (the East and the West) are seeded from one to eight, based on their win-to-loss record in the regular season. They are then placed into brackets. In the first round of the playoffs, the top seed plays the eighth seed, the second plays the seventh, three plays six and four plays five.

The winner of the one/eight seven-game series plays the winner of the four/five series, and the winner of the two/seven series plays the three/six winner.

The team with the home-court advantage, which is usually the higher seed, hosts games one, two, five, and seven, and goes on the road for games three, four and six.

✧ Each conference is split into divisons that each contain six teams:

Eastern Conference
Atlantic -> click for a list of teams

Central -> click for a list of teams

Southeast -> click for a list of teams

Western Conference
Northwest -> click for a list of teams

Southwest -> click for a list of teams

Pacific -> click for a list of teams

The winners of each divison, as well as the remaining teams out of the other five with the best record, are given the first through fourth seeds in the playoffs.

If two teams finish the season with the same record, then the following statistics are used to decide which team gets the higher seed (in descending order):

Head-to-head record -> click here for more info

Win percentage in the divison (if the tited teams are in the same division) -> click here for more info

Win percentage in the conference -> click here for more info

Win percentage against playoff teams in the conference -> click here for more info

Win percentage against playoff teams in the other conference -> click here for more info

Point differential -> click here for more info

The order of the playoffs is as follows:

Conference quarterfinals
Conference semifinals
Conference finals
NBA Finals
✧ Use this section to define any terms that you're unsure of.

Bracket
Home-court advantage
Seed