The NBA is one of the most exciting competitions in the world and every October, a lot of fans reignite their passion for basketball when the league normally starts. In six months of competition, every single team in the association tries to make it to the big party and only a handful of them achieve that.
At the end of the regular season, the real competition starts and the best teams in each conference start their quest for the NBA championship and they don’t stop until they reach the Finals and lift the Larry O’Brien trophy.
The format of the playoffs has suffered a couple of changes over the year and believe it or not, not everybody knows how many teams play in the NBA postseason every year. That is why we’re about to break down the number of squads that go to the big party to compete for one of the most coveted trophies in the world of sports.
How many teams make the NBA playoffs every year?
The league currently has 30 teams, shared in the Western and Eastern Conference. 15 teams in the East and 15 in the West, respectively. Every season, these teams go at it against each other, trying to have a good record to play in the postseason.
At the end of every regular season, eight teams from the East and eight teams from the West compete in the NBA playoffs in a best-of-seven series, first between the eight teams of each conference before playing in the Finals.
NBA playoffs format
The bracket of the playoffs is defined in pairings for the first round as such: #1 vs #8, #2 vs #7, #3 vs #6, #4 vs #5. After the first round, the highest seed team will receive the lowest-seed team, as indicated in the first round.
This will help the competition and in the best of the cases, the #1 and #2 in the conference will clash in the Conference Finals. Last year, the Los Angeles Lakers won the championship, beating the Miami Heat in six games.
