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In the National Basketball Association (NBA), a game seven is the final game of a best-of-seven series in the NBA playoffs. Based on the playoffs format arrangement,[a] it is played in the venue of the team holding home-court advantage for the series. The necessity of a game seven is not known until the outcome of game six is determined, assuming that a series reaches that far. In other words, game seven is the only one in a series that is not guaranteed more than one game in advance. Due to the decisive nature of game sevens, they are often "played more conservatively" and receive more media and fan attention.[1]
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The NBA Finals has always employed a best-of-seven series format. The Conference (or Division) Finals have used this format since 1958;[2] the Conference (or Division) Semifinals since 1968;[3] and the First Round since 2003.[4][5] During the 1947 and 1948 playoffs, in which teams from different divisions met each other in the opening rounds, the first-place teams from each division played a best-of-seven series against each other before one advanced to the league finals. The other teams in the playoffs competed against each other in three best-of-three series to determine the other spot in the finals.[6]
Since the inception of the NBA, 151 game sevens have been played. Of those, only six went into overtime, and one into double overtime. 39 game sevens have been won by the road team.[7] Every active NBA franchise has played in at least one game seven. There have been thirteen NBA playoff seasons in which no game seven was played: 1947, 1949, 1950, 1953, 1956, 1958, 1967, 1972, 1983, 1985, 1989, 1991, and 1999. The 1994, the 2014 and the 2016 postseasons hold the record for most game sevens played, with five. In 1979, 1981, 1988, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2018 and 2020, four game sevens were played. The Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks both hold the record for most game sevens played in a single postseason, having played three game sevens in 1988 and 1994, respectively, the maximum possible at that time.
| OT | Overtime (the number in front indicates the number of overtime periods played, if there were more than one) |
| * | Indicates a game seven that was won by the road team |
| Year (X) | Indicates the number of game sevens played in that year's postseason Each year is linked to an article about that particular NBA season |
| ∞ | Indicates a game seven that was hosted at a neutral site |
| § | Indicates the team that lost a game seven after coming back from an 0–3 series deficit |
| Team (#) | Indicates team and the number of game sevens played by that team at that point |
| ^ | Indicates game seven in the NBA Finals |
(*) – Number of overtime periods played in the seventh game.
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