2015 NBA playoffs

The 2015 NBA Playoffs is the postseason tournament of the National Basketball Association's 2014–15 season. The playoffs began on Saturday, April 18, with the NBA Finals starting on Thursday, June 4.

For the first time since 2005–06, all teams from a particular division made the playoffs (in this case, all teams from the Southwest Division).^{[citation needed]}

The San Antonio Spurs will be making their league leading 18th straight playoffs appearance, while the Atlanta Hawks (eighth straight playoffs appearance)^[1] and the Golden State Warriors (third straight playoffs appearance) will enter the playoffs as the first seed of their respective conferences.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are making their first postseason appearance since 2010, the final season of LeBron James' first stint with the Cavaliers. On the other hand, James' former team, the Miami Heat, will miss the playoffs a year after making the previous year's Finals, becoming the first team to do so since the 2005 Lakers. Miami had qualified for the playoffs for six consecutive seasons before missing this year, also reaching the NBA Finals four consecutive times.

In 2014, the Heat, Thunder, and Pacers were three of the four finalists. All three teams missed the 2015 playoffs, falling short by one victory apiece (with the Thunder and Pacers missing out due to losing head-to-head tiebreakers to the Pelicans and Nets, respectively).

Despite starting their respective seasons in a rebuilding mode, both the Milwaukee Bucks and the Boston Celtics managed to return to the playoffs after a one-year absence. Bucks head coach Jason Kidd became the first head coach to lead two teams to the playoffs in his first two seasons, having led the Brooklyn Nets to the playoffs the previous season.^{[citation needed]}

The first round of the playoffs saw a record six teams take a 3–0 lead in their respective series, the first time it has happened since the first round expanded to a best-of-seven series in 2003.^{[citation needed]}

The #5 seed defeated the #4 seed in both conferences for the third straight year.

The first-round series between Los Angeles (Clippers) and San Antonio is the first series to have a Game 7, making it 16 consecutive postseasons to have at least one Game 7 played. The 1999 Playoffs were that last playoffs to not feature a Game 7 at all.

Format

Within each conference, the three division winners and the five non-division winners with the most wins qualified for the playoffs. The seedings are based on each team's record; however, a division winner is guaranteed to be ranked at least fourth, regardless of record.

Each conference's bracket is fixed; there is no reseeding. All rounds are best-of-seven series; the team that has four wins advances to the next round. As stated above, all rounds, including the NBA Finals, are in a 2–2–1–1–1 format. Home court advantage in any round does not necessarily belong to the higher-seeded team, but instead to the team with the better regular season record. If two teams with the same record meet in a round, standard tiebreaker rules are used. The rule for determining home court advantage in the NBA Finals is winning percentage, then head to head record, followed by record vs. opposite conference.

Tiebreaker rules

The tiebreakers that determine seedings are:

Division leader wins tie from team not leading a division
Head-to-head record
Division record (if all the tied teams are in the same division)
Conference record
Record vs. playoff teams, own conference
Record vs. playoff teams, other conference (only in two-way tie)
Point differential, all games

If there were more than two teams tied, the team that wins the tiebreaker gets the highest seed, while the other teams were "re-broken" from the first step until all ties were resolved. Since the three division winners were guaranteed a spot in the top four, ties to determine the division winners had to be broken before any other ties.

Possible future changes

As the 2014-15 regular season proceeded into February 2015, the ninth place team in the Western Conference had a better record than the eighth place team in the East. This led NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to suggest changing the playoff format, where the top 16 teams throughout the entire league would qualify, regardless of division or conference.^[2] Silver then stated that the league might not be able to implement such changes until the 2016-17 season at the earliest.^[3]

Playoff qualifying

On March 3, the Atlanta Hawks became the first team to clinch a playoff spot. This is the earliest a team has clinched a playoff spot since the 1995–96 Chicago Bulls clinched on March 2.^[4] The Golden State Warriors became the first Western Conference team to clinch a playoff spot on March 16.

Eastern Conference

Seed	Team	Record	Clinched
Seed	Team	Record	Playoff berth	Division title	Best record in Conference	Best record in NBA
1	Atlanta Hawks	60–22	March 3^[5]	March 20^[6]	March 27^[7]	—
2	Cleveland Cavaliers	53–29	March 20^[8]	April 8^[9]	—	—
3	Chicago Bulls	50–32	March 23^[10]	—	—	—
4	Toronto Raptors	49–33	March 25^[11]	March 27^[12]	—	—
5	Washington Wizards	46–36	March 30^[13]	—	—	—
6	Milwaukee Bucks	41–41	April 12	—	—	—
7	Boston Celtics	40–42	April 13	—	—	—
8	Brooklyn Nets	38–44^[a]	April 15	—	—	—

Western Conference

Seed	Team	Record	Clinched
Seed	Team	Record	Playoff berth	Division title	Best record in Conference	Best record in NBA
1	Golden State Warriors	67–15	March 16^[14]	March 24	March 28	April 4^[15]
2	Houston Rockets	56–26^[b]	March 27	April 15	—	—
3	Los Angeles Clippers	56–26^[b]	March 27	—	—	—
4	Portland Trail Blazers	51–31	March 30	April 3	—	—
5	Memphis Grizzlies	55–27^[c]	March 23	—	—	—
6	San Antonio Spurs	55–27^[c]	April 1	—	—	—
7	Dallas Mavericks	50–32	April 7	—	—	—
8	New Orleans Pelicans	45–37^[d]	April 15	—	—	—

Notes

^ Brooklyn Nets clinched #8 seed over Indiana Pacers based on a 2–1 regular season series record.
^ ^a ^b Houston Rockets clinched #2 seed over Los Angeles Clippers based on winning Southwest Division.
^ ^a ^b Memphis Grizzlies clinched #5 seed over San Antonio Spurs based on Southwest Division winning percentage. (.563 vs .500)
^ New Orleans Pelicans clinched #8 seed over Oklahoma City Thunder based on 3–1 regular season series record.

Bracket

Teams in bold advanced to the next round. The numbers to the left of each team indicate the team's seeding in its conference, and the numbers to the right indicate the number of games the team won in that round. The division champions are marked by an asterisk. Teams with home court advantage are shown in Italics. Template:2015 NBA Playoffs

Eastern Conference

All times are in Eastern Daylight Time (UTC−4)

First Round

(1) Atlanta Hawks vs. (8) Brooklyn Nets

TNT

April 19
5:30 pm

Brooklyn Nets 92, Atlanta Hawks 99
Scoring by quarter: 20–32, 25–23, 17–19, 30–25
Pts: Johnson, Lopez 17 each Rebs: Brook Lopez 14 Asts: Joe Johnson 6		Pts: Kyle Korver 21 Rebs: Al Horford 10 Asts: three players 3 each

Brooklyn Nets 91, Atlanta Hawks 96
Scoring by quarter: 24–29, 23–21, 20–25, 24–21
Pts: Jarrett Jack 23 Rebs: Deron Williams 10 Asts: Deron Williams 8		Pts: Paul Millsap 19 Rebs: Al Horford 13 Asts: Al Horford 7

Atlanta Hawks 83, Brooklyn Nets 91
Scoring by quarter: 16–31, 24–16, 22–20, 21–24
Pts: DeMarre Carroll 22 Rebs: Paul Millsap 17 Asts: Jeff Teague 6		Pts: Brook Lopez 22 Rebs: Brook Lopez 13 Asts: Jarrett Jack 8

Atlanta Hawks 115, Brooklyn Nets 120 (OT)
Scoring by quarter: 24–25, 27–20, 31–29, 22–30, Overtime: 11–16
Pts: Carroll, Teague 20 each Rebs: Paul Millsap 12 Asts: Jeff Teague 11		Pts: Deron Williams 35 Rebs: Brook Lopez 10 Asts: Deron Williams 7

Format

Tiebreaker rules

Possible future changes

Playoff qualifying

Eastern Conference

Western Conference

Bracket

Eastern Conference

First Round

(1) Atlanta Hawks vs. (8) Brooklyn Nets

(2) Cleveland Cavaliers vs. (7) Boston Celtics

(3) Chicago Bulls vs. (6) Milwaukee Bucks

(4) Toronto Raptors vs. (5) Washington Wizards

Conference Semifinals

(1/8) TBA vs. (5) Washington Wizards

(2) Cleveland Cavaliers vs. (3) Chicago Bulls

Western Conference

First Round

(1) Golden State Warriors vs. (8) New Orleans Pelicans

(2) Houston Rockets vs. (7) Dallas Mavericks

(3) Los Angeles Clippers vs. (6) San Antonio Spurs

(4) Portland Trail Blazers vs. (5) Memphis Grizzlies

Conference Semifinals

(1) Golden State Warriors vs. (5) Memphis Grizzlies

(2) Houston Rockets vs. (3/6) TBA

Media coverage

Television

Radio

References