A Beginner's Guide to the NBA Playoffs
A blog post written as requested by our readers who had read my NBA content and were looking to get into the sport but were struggling to understand the implications of seedings and other considerations in the playoffs. This post was extremely successful with over 3k hits in the week leading up to the start of the postseason.
The regular season is in the books and that only means one thing for NBA fans: it’s time for the playoffs. After the wild finish to the regular season that saw the Spurs win streak snapped and them fall from 2 to 6 in a loss to the Pelicans (which also secured a berth for the Pelicans) and the Nets sneak in at the last over the Pacers we are ready to change our focus to the championship run. The Golden State Warriors are the clear favourites with their 67-15 record. Only 3 teams with 65+ wins have failed to win the Larry O’Brien trophy. But they will, however, have their work cut out for them. The Spurs in the West and Cavs and Hawks out East will all have lofty championship aspirations.
For those who don’t know how the NBA playoffs work, each of the top 8 teams are seeded 1-8 with the teams in the top half facing off against those in the lower half based on their record (1st seed vs 8th seed, 2nd seed vs 7th seed etc) in a best of 7 series. The team with the better record has “homecourt” advantage – plays 4 of the 7 games at home. The team with homecourt advantage plays the first 2 at home, then goes on the road for 2 and then it alternates for the last 3 games. As soon as a team wins 4 games the series is over.
Once the first round is decided, the winners face-off in the Conference Semi-Finals, followed by the conference finals. The winners of the East and West respectively will then go head to head to determine who the best team in the NBA is. The format changes for the team with homecourt to 2-3-2 (home-road-home games).
A few things worth knowing: In an NBA playoffs, the team with homecourt advantage wins the series around 78% of the time. Also, no team has ever overturned a 3-0 deficit. In 1999, the New York Knicks became the first and only 8th seed to reach the finals; and the 1994-95 Houston Rockets are the lowest seeded NBA champs. They won it as a 6th seed (good omen for the Spurs, maybe?). In short: homecourt matters!
With the first round about to kick off it’s only right we take a look at the matchups. Look out for the Bespoke first round previews coming up ahead of the start of the 2015 playoffs tomorrow as the quest for an NBA Championship ramps up a gear tomorrow; beginning with a great game as the Washington Wizards face-off against the Toronto Raptors at 5.30pm UK time.
