NBA Playoffs Tickets

The NBA playoffs represent the final portion of the NBA season and see the top eight teams in the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference fight it out to get to the NBA Finals, where the real business begins.

The NBA began life in 1949 following a merger between the BBA (Basketball Association of America) and the NBL (National Basketball League), and slowly by surely it's become the premier basketball in the world and one of the biggest leagues in the sporting calendar worldwide.

Interest in the NBA, especially once we get to the playoffs, is huge, with millions watching in person at arenas across the country and hundreds of millions across the world.

Fans all over the world want to attend an NBA game, and doing so during the exciting playoffs is something that many dream about securing.

Over the course of the lengthy NBA history, the playoffs have had a variety of different formats.

In 1950, with the NBA being a three-division set-up at the time, the number of teams that took part in the NBA playoffs was 12. Each round of the playoffs at this time was a best of 3 game series, with the NBA Finals being the traditional seven-game format.

In 1984 the system moved to 16 teams, with the first round being a best-of-five series and the subsequent rounds being best of seven.

In 2003 the first round became, as it is today, a seven-game series.

By 2016 the qualification criteria changed so that the eight best teams with the best records, regardless of their divisional position, would secure playoff berths.

Record Playoff Appearances

The list below outlines the teams with the no most appearances in the NBA playoffs (correct as of April 2023).

• Los Angeles Lakers: 62

• Boston Celtics: 59

• Philadelphia 76ers: 52

• Atlanta Hawks: 48

• Detroit Pistons: 42

• New York Knicks: 42

• San Antonio Spurs: 39

• Portland Trail Blazers: 37

• Chicago Bulls: 36

• Golden State Warriors: 36

• Houston Rockets: 34

• Milwaukee Bucks: 34

• Oklahoma City Thunder: 32

• Phoenix Suns: 31

Most NBA Playoff Points

This list contains the most points scored by individual players in the playoffs.

• LeBron James: 7631

• Michael Jordan: 5987

• Kareem Abdul Jabbar: 5762

• Kobe Bryant: 5640

• Shaquille O'Neal: 5250

• Tim Duncan: 5172

• Karl Malone: 4761

• Kevin Durant: 4559

• Jerry West: 4457

• Tony Parker: 4045

How the NBA Playoffs Work

Once the regular season is complete, and it's an exhausting undertaking with each team playing 82 games, the teams who have the best records in each Conference are afforded a direct route to the playoffs.

In 2020 a series of play-in games were added to the schedule to offer additional teams a chance to book their way into the playoffs.

The NBA playoffs start typically around the second week of April and will run until the end of May, mid-June.

Currently, the top six teams in each conference go directly to the first round of the playoffs, while teams that sit in places seven to ten will take part in the play-in games with a view to securing the final two berths in each conference playoff route.

The teams are split into seedings, and the top seed in each first-round playoff series gets the home-court advantage in a seven-game series with the seeded team hosting the first two games, the opponent hosting the next two, and then each hosting in alternate fashion for the remaining seven games, if indeed the series goes that long.

Winners in the first round advance into an effective second round, which is when the Conference Semifinals begin in the same format as the previous round. Following this, the remaining four teams fight it out to secure Conference Finals bragging rights, and the winner of each of the Conference Finals then meets in the NBA Finals.

The winner of this series is then crowned the NBA Champions.

This lengthy process might mean that a successful NBA Championship-winning team may have to play as many as 110 games and even more if they have had to go via the play-in route.

Interesting NBA Playoff Facts

• No 8th Seeded Team has ever Won the NBA Championship (The 1999 New York Knicks being the only team to even make it to the NBA Finals, and that came during a season reduced due to a lockout, beating the Miami Heat, the Atlanta Hawks, and the Indiana Pacers before losing to the San Antonio Spurs)

• The Golden State Warriors won 15 straight playoff games in 2017, which is an NBA record

• Chicago Bulls are the only team to have made it to multiple NBA finals and never lost

• The Sacramento Kings hold the record for the longest playoff drought, having failed to make it every season since 2005-06

• In 2017 the Golden State Warriors completed an NBA-best 16-1 playoff record, their only loss in the entire post-season coming to the Cleveland Cavaliers, who they beat 4-1 in the NBA Finals that season.

• The Houston Rockets, in 1994-95, became the lowest seeds to win the NBA Finals. They were seeded sixth before beating the Utah Jazz, the Phoenix Suns, the San Antonio Spurs, and the Orlando Magic to win the NBA Championship.

• The Golden State Warriors team of 2006-07 became the first eight seed to beat a one seed in the best of 7 format season when they defeated the Dallas Mavericks in six games.

• Only five teams seeded eight have won a series over the number one seeds. The Denver Nuggets, the New York Knicks, the Golden State Warriors, the Memphis Grizzlies, and the Philadelphia 76ers, who did so in 2012.

• The Minnesota Timberwolves have the lowest number of playoff game wins, with just 18, and the Los Angeles Lakers have the highest, with 458.