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The NBA Finals is the championship series for the National Basketball Association (NBA) held at the conclusion of its postseason. All NBA Finals have been played in a best-of-seven format, and are contested between the winners of the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference (formerly Divisions before 1970), except in 1950 when the Eastern Division champion faced the winner between the Western and Central Division champions. From 1946 through 1949, when the league was known as the Basketball Association of America (BAA), the playoffs were a three-stage tournament where the two semifinal winners played each other in the finals.[1][2][3] The winning team of the series receives the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy, which is awarded since 1977 (between 1947 and 1976 the winning team received the Walter A. Brown Trophy).[4]
The current home-and-away format in the NBA Finals is 2–2–1–1–1 (the team with the better regular season record plays on its home court in games 1, 2, 5, and 7), which has been used in 1947, 1948,[5] 1950–1952,[6][7][8] 1957–1970, 1972–1974, 1976, 1977, 1979–1984, and since 2014. It was previously in a 2–3–2 format (the team with the better regular season record plays on its home court in games 1, 2, 6, and 7) during 1949, 1953–1955, and 1985–2013,[9][10] in a 1–1–1–1–1–1–1 format in 1956 and 1971,[11][12] and in a 1–2–2–1–1 format in 1975 and 1978.[13][14]
As of 2024[update], the Eastern champions have a 41–36 advantage in NBA titles over the Western champions, with their most recent being the Boston Celtics who have won 18 titles, the most of any team in the league.[15] The 1949–50 Minneapolis Lakers, who won the NBA Finals, are not counted in the Eastern versus Western champions record above as they played in the Central Division.
Bold | Winning team of the BAA/NBA Finals |
Italics | Team with home-court advantage |
Italics | Finals MVP was on losing team |
† | Only defunct team to win championship |
Eight consecutive
Three consecutive
Two consecutive
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