The 2015 NBA playoffs was the postseason tournament of the National Basketball Association's 2014–15 season. The tournament concluded with the Western Conference champion Golden State Warriors defeating the Eastern Conference champion Cleveland Cavaliers 4 games to 2 in the NBA Finals. Andre Iguodala was named NBA Finals MVP.

Overview

Western Conference

For the first time since 2005–06, all teams from a particular division made the playoffs (in this case, all five teams from the Southwest Division).

The San Antonio Spurs made their 18th straight playoff appearance, while the Golden State Warriors (third straight playoff appearance) entered the playoffs as the first seed of their respective conferences.

Despite making the Western Conference Finals the previous year and winning 45 games this season, the Oklahoma City Thunder missed the playoffs due to a tie-breaker with the New Orleans Pelicans. The Pelicans themselves made their first playoff appearance since 2011, and their first as The Pelicans.

Eastern Conference

The Atlanta Hawks entered their eighth consecutive postseason (continuing the longest active streak in the Eastern Conference) with the top seed in the Eastern Conference.^[1]

The Cleveland Cavaliers made 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, missed the playoffs 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. The Heat and their fellow Floridian team, the Orlando Magic, both missed the playoffs in the same season for the first time since 1993.

Despite making the Eastern Conference Finals last season, the Indiana Pacers failed to make the playoffs by virtue of losing a tie-breaker to the Brooklyn Nets.

Despite starting their respective seasons in a rebuilding mode, both the Milwaukee Bucks and the Boston Celtics returned 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 Nets to the playoffs the previous season.^[2]

First Round

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

The fifth seed defeated the fourth seed in both conferences for the third straight year.^[4][5][6]

With their first round victory over the Dallas Mavericks, the Houston Rockets won their first playoff series since 2009.

Game 7 between the Clippers and Spurs ensured a 16th straight postseason in which at least one Game 7 was played; 1999 was the last postseason to not feature a Game 7.

The San Antonio Spurs became the first defending champions to be eliminated in the first round since the 2011–12 Dallas Mavericks. This was only the second time it had happened since 2000.

Conference Semifinals

With the Spurs being eliminated in the first round, none of the eight teams remaining at the beginning of the Conference Semifinals had previously won an NBA championship in the 21st century. Entering the Conference Semifinals, of the teams who had previously won an NBA championship, the Chicago Bulls had the shortest drought at 17 years, having most recently won an NBA championship in 1998, while the Atlanta Hawks had the longest overall drought at 57 years, having won their only previous championship in 1958 when the franchise was based in St. Louis.

All teams that held a 2–1 series lead within the first three games of their respective second round series had gone on to lose that series.

The Cavaliers–Bulls series was notable for two game winning baskets by both teams’ star players.

• Game 3: Derrick Rose hitting a wide open three pointer to win the game for the Chicago Bulls.
• Game 4: LeBron James making a catch and shoot two pointer to win the game for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

With their Game 7 win over the Los Angeles Clippers, the Houston Rockets became the ninth team in NBA history to come back from 3–1 series deficits to win the conference semifinals, and only the second franchise to do it twice. They had first achieved that goal 20 years ago against the Phoenix Suns. The Boston Celtics are the only other franchise to twice make this comeback, doing it in 1968 and 1981. Overall, twelve teams have achieved the feat, with the Golden State Warriors doing it in the Western Conference Finals and Cleveland Cavaliers doing it in the NBA Finals the following season. The Denver Nuggets did it twice in 2020.

With their series win over the Chicago Bulls, the Cleveland Cavaliers made the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 2009.

With their series win over the Washington Wizards, the Atlanta Hawks made the Conference Finals (then called the Division Finals) for the first time since 1970. Since 1970, they had lost all 15 Division or Conference Semifinal series they participated in.

With their series win over the Memphis Grizzlies, the Golden State Warriors made their first conference finals appearance since 1976, while the Houston Rockets made their first conference finals appearance since 1997. The Hawks, Warriors, and Rockets were the three NBA teams which had been waiting for the longest time for a return to the conference finals prior to this postseason.

Conference Finals

For the second straight year, the No. 1 seed faced the No. 2 seed in the Conference Finals, and for the fourth time since 2000.

For the first time in NBA playoff history, both conference finals teams, the Warriors of the West and the Cavaliers of the East, held commanding 3–0 series leads. Cleveland went on to the finals, sweeping the Atlanta Hawks 4–0 to make their first NBA Finals since 2007, while Golden State won their series 4–1 defeating the Houston Rockets en route to their first NBA Finals since 1975.^[7][8]

NBA Finals

For the first time since the inaugural Basketball Association of America season in 1946–47, two rookie coaches, David Blatt of the Cavaliers and Steve Kerr of the Warriors, met each other in the NBA finals.

Like the Conference Semifinals, the team that took a 2–1 series lead (the Cleveland Cavaliers), went on to lose the series.

The Golden State Warriors won their first championship since 1975. Andre Iguodala was named NBA Finals MVP despite not starting in a game until the NBA Finals.

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:

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

If there are 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.^[9] Silver then stated that the league might not be able to implement such changes until the 2016–17 season at the earliest.^[10]

Playoff qualifying

On March 3, the Atlanta Hawks became the first team to clinch a playoff spot. This was the earliest a team had clinched a playoff spot since the 1995–96 Chicago Bulls clinched on March 2.^[11] The Golden State Warriors became the first Western Conference team to clinch a playoff spot on March 16.

Bracket

Notes

Memphis had home court advantage in the first round despite not being a higher seed as they had a better regular season record than their opponent, but did not have the best record of the non-division-champion playoff teams in the West. This rule was changed as a result of this season's playoffs. The southwest division, which the Grizzlies are a part of, also had all five teams make the playoffs this year. This had only happened 3 times before.

First round

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

Eastern Conference first round

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