The 1975 NBA playoffs was the postseason tournament of the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball sports league, league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues i ...

's 1974–75 season. The tournament concluded with the Western Conference champion

Golden State Warriors The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in San Francisco. The Warriors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA), as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. Founded in 194 ...

defeating the Eastern Conference champion Washington Bullets 4 games to 0 in the

NBA Finals The NBA Finals is the annual 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 team that wins the series is a ...

. Rick Barry was named NBA Finals MVP. The Warriors won their third NBA title and first since

1956 Events January * January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan. * January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming, are kille ...

as the Philadelphia Warriors. The playoff format was revised again, as the result of which the first two finishers in each division were guaranteed playoff berths, along with the best third-place team from each conference. Once each conference's qualifiers were selected, they were seeded 1–5, with the fourth and fifth seeds playing a best-of-three series, with the victor advancing to play the first seed in a best-of-seven semifinal, while the second and third seeds played the other semifinal. The eight-year-old Seattle SuperSonics made their playoff debut, winning the first playoff series in franchise history against the Detroit Pistons. Seattle would go on to make consecutive NBA Finals appearances in

1978 Events January * January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213. * January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd government). * January 6 ...

and 1979, winning the championship the latter year. The

Kansas City-Omaha Kings The Sacramento Kings are an American professional basketball team based in Sacramento, California. The Kings compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Western Conference Pacific Division. The Kings are the olde ...

made their first playoff appearance since 1967 as the Cincinnati Royals, and the

Houston Rockets The Houston Rockets are an American professional basketball team based in Houston. The Rockets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member team of the league's Western Conference Southwest Division. The team plays its ho ...

made their first playoff appearance since

1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...

as the San Diego Rockets. The 1975 playoffs expanded the number of playoff qualifiers to 10; it would be expanded again to 12 in 1977 and again to its current number of 16 in 1984. At the time, this was the closest the Chicago Bulls came to an NBA title, losing to the Warriors in the Western Conference Finals 4–3. This was their second and final Western Conference Finals appearance as they would move to the Eastern Conference in 1980. They would not reach the East Finals until

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...

, and would not win a title until 1991.

Bracket

First Round