NBA playoffs

The NBA playoffs is the annual postseasontournament of the National Basketball Association (NBA) to determine the league’s champion. The playoffs date back to 1947 when the NBA was then known as the Basketball Association of America, and eventually expanded to the present-day four-round, best-of-seven tournament in 2003. Since 2020, it has been held after the preliminary postseason tournament, the NBA play-in tournament. Under the current postseason format since 2021, six teams from each of the two conferences automatically advance to the playoffs based on regular season winning percentage, while those teams finishing seventh through tenth from each conference first compete in the play-in tournament to determine the final two playoff seeds. The playoffs culminate with the NBA Finals, where both conference champions from the NBA conference finals play each other.