2025 NBA playoffs
| Tournament details | |
|---|---|
| Dates | April 19 – June 2025[a] |
| Season | 2024–25 |
| Teams | 16 |
The 2025 NBA playoffs is the upcoming postseason tournament of the National Basketball Association's 2024–25 season. The playoffs will begin on April 19 and will end with the conclusion of the 2025 NBA Finals.
Overview
[edit]Updates to postseason appearances
[edit]- The Cleveland Cavaliers will enter the playoffs for the third consecutive season.
- The Oklahoma City Thunder will enter the playoffs for the second consecutive season.
Format
[edit]Eight teams from each conference participated in the playoffs. The top six teams in each conference, based on winning percentage, directly qualified for the playoffs; the seeding order of those teams was also based on winning percentage. If two or more teams had the same record, standard NBA tiebreaker rules were used.
The NBA Board of Governors adopted a format starting in 2021 to have a play-in tournament involving the teams ranked 7th through 10th in each conference. The 7th place team and 8th place team participated in a "double-chance" game, with the winner advancing to the playoffs as the 7-seed. The loser then played the winner of the elimination game between the 9th place and 10th place teams to determine the playoff's 8-seed. The NBA's regular playoff format then proceeded as normal.[2]
Each conference's bracket was fixed with no reseeding. All rounds were a best-of-seven series; a series ended when one team won four games, and that team advanced to the next round. All rounds, including the NBA Finals, were in a 2–2–1–1–1 format with regards to hosting. In the conference playoffs, home-court advantage went to the higher-seeded team (number one being the highest). For the NBA Finals, home-court advantage went to the team with the better regular season record, and, if needed, ties were broken based on head-to-head record, followed by intra-conference record.
Playoff qualifying
[edit]On March 5, 2025, the Cleveland Cavaliers became the first team to clinch a playoff spot.[3] While noted in the below tables, division titles have no bearing on seeding.[4]
The below tables reflect current playoff positioning and are subject to change through the end of the regular season (April 13). Seeds 7 and 8 in each conference are not finalized until the first-stage play-in tournament is completed (April 15–18).
Updated as of March 12, 2025.
Eastern Conference
[edit]| Seed | Team | Record | Clinched | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Play-in berth | Playoff berth | Division title | Best record in conference |
Best record in NBA | |||
| 1 | Cleveland Cavaliers | 55–10 | — | March 5[3] | March 11[5] | ||
| 2 | Boston Celtics | 47–19 | |||||
| 3 | New York Knicks | 42–23 | |||||
| 4 | Milwaukee Bucks | 36–28 | |||||
| 5 | Indiana Pacers | 36–28 | |||||
| 6 | Detroit Pistons | 37–29 | |||||
| † | Atlanta Hawks | 32–34 | |||||
| † | Orlando Magic | 30–36 | |||||
| † | Miami Heat | 29–36 | |||||
| † | Chicago Bulls | 27–38 | |||||
† Teams ranked 7 through 10 will participate in the play-in tournament to determine seeds 7 and 8.
Western Conference
[edit]| Seed | Team | Record | Clinched | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Play-in berth | Playoff berth | Division title | Best record in conference |
Best record in NBA | |||
| 1 | Oklahoma City Thunder | 54–12 | — | March 12[6] | |||
| 2 | Memphis Grizzlies | 42–24 | |||||
| 3 | Denver Nuggets | 42–24 | |||||
| 4 | Los Angeles Lakers | 40–23 | |||||
| 5 | Houston Rockets | 41–25 | |||||
| 6 | Golden State Warriors | 37–28 | |||||
| † | Minnesota Timberwolves | 38–29 | |||||
| † | Los Angeles Clippers | 36–30 | |||||
| † | Sacramento Kings | 33–31 | |||||
| † | Dallas Mavericks | 33–34 | |||||
† Teams ranked 7 through 10 will participate in the play-in tournament to determine seeds 7 and 8.
Media coverage
[edit]Television
[edit]This will be the final playoffs that games will air nationally across ABC, ESPN, TNT, and NBA TV in the United States before both Amazon Prime Video and NBC Sports replace TNT next season. Each team's regional broadcaster will also televise local coverage of first-round games, with the exception of most games on ABC. In general, during the first two rounds, ABC will air Sunday afternoon games, TNT will broadcast Sunday through Wednesday night games, and ESPN televise Friday night games. For Thursday night games, TNT has in the first round and ESPN in the second round. NBA TV will also televise selected Tuesday through Thursday night first-round games. Saturday first- and second-round games will be split by ABC, ESPN, and TNT. As per the alternating rotation, ESPN/ABC has exclusive coverage of the Western Conference finals while TNT has exclusive coverage of the Eastern Conference finals. ABC has exclusive coverage of the NBA Finals for the 23rd straight year.
Streaming
[edit]NBA TV games will be available on NBA League Pass as part of its normal streaming service for that channel. TNT games will stream on Max. Only selected ESPN and all ABC games may stream live on ESPN+.
Sponsorship
[edit]For the fourth straight year, the playoffs is now officially known as the "2025 NBA Playoffs presented by Google." As part of an multi-year agreement with Google, this sponsorship provides the logo branding inside the venues and in official digital properties on-court, as well as commercial inventory during ABC, ESPN, TNT, and NBA TV's telecasts of the playoff games.[7]
Notes
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "2025 NBA Play-in, Playoffs & Finals Schedule". NBA.com. February 24, 2025. Retrieved March 3, 2025.
- ^ Reynolds, Tim (July 12, 2022). "NBA adopts Play-In Tournament on full-time basis". Las Vegas: Warner Bros. Discovery Sports. Associated Press. Archived from the original on July 28, 2022. Retrieved July 28, 2022.
- ^ a b Quinn, Sam (March 5, 2025). "Cavaliers become first NBA team to clinch playoff spot after tying Heat 3-pointer wiped away in wild finish". CBS Sports. Retrieved March 5, 2025.
- ^ Moore, Matt (September 9, 2015). "5 Things to Know: NBA division winners not guaranteed playoff spot". CBS Sports. Archived from the original on December 3, 2022. Retrieved April 6, 2023.
- ^ Dulik, Brian (March 11, 2025). "Cavs push win streak to 15". NBA.com. Retrieved March 11, 2025.
- ^ "Thunder clinch playoff spot by passing Celtics test". ESPN.com. March 13, 2025. Retrieved March 13, 2025.
- ^ "NBA reaches deal to make Google Pixel first presenting partner of NBA playoffs". TheAthletic.com. October 18, 2021. Archived from the original on December 24, 2022. Retrieved March 12, 2025.
