NBA Playoff Tiebreakers: How Final Standings & Seedings Are Decided

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The NBA playoffs are one of the most intense stretches in all of sports, and often times it will come down to the very end of the regular season before all of the final seedings are set. While a number of postseason spots are secured prior to the final few days of the season, seedings and opening-round opponents may not be decided until the NBA’s final night.

And even in those situations, the league will have to look at tiebreakers in some instances. There are two different ways that tiebreakers are used to determine the final playoff standings, one of which is used if two teams finish with the same record. The other comes down to a scenario where more than two teams are tied for one spot. The two outlooks are very similar, but often times a two-team tie can be fairly easy to figure out.

We’re going to take a look at the breakdown of how NBA tiebreakers work and lay out how the league goes about the process.

How Two-Team NBA Tiebreakers Are Decided

*Note: All tiebreaker rules are courtesy of NBA.com.

1. Head-to-head won-lost percentage
2. Division leader wins tie from team not leading a division
3. Division won-lost percentage for teams in the same division
4. Conference won-lost percentage
5. W-L Percentage vs. Playoff teams, own conference
6. W-L Percentage vs. Playoff teams, other conference
7. Net Points, all games

This situation is focused around when two teams are holding the same record. It can be fairly easy to sort this out if the teams didn’t split the regular-season series. In that situation, whichever team won more head-to-head matchups will receive the higher seed. If it’s a split, the tiebreak would move to whether there’s a division leader between the two, and if not then the division win/loss records or conference win/loss marks come into play.

For the most part, the outlook is decided by that point. In the occurrence that it’s not, then it turns to an evaluation of overall records against playoff teams throughout the year.

Multi-Way NBA Tiebreakers

*Note: All tiebreaker rules are courtesy of NBA.com.

1. Division leader wins tie from team not leading a division
2. Head-to-head won-lost percentage
3. Division won-lost percentage for teams in the same division
4. Conference won-lost percentage
5. W-L Percentage vs. Playoff teams, own conference
6. W-L Percentage vs. Playoff teams, other conference
7. Net Points, all games

The outlook here is similar to above, but when it’s a multi-team tiebreaker, there’s a much higher chance that more things will need to be factored in. These tiebreakers can become a bit overwhelming, especially in the off chance that more than three teams are involved when the season wraps up.

For the most part, you’ll find that it’s two teams tied with the same record, which is fairly straightforward to sort out. If there are three-plus teams tied, any division leader immediately gets an edge, and if one team is eliminated then it would go to the head-to-head record.

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