The 2022 NBA playoffs was the postseason tournament of the National Basketball Association's 2021–22 season. The playoffs began on April 16 and ended on June 16 with the conclusion of the 2022 NBA Finals. The playoffs also returned to its normal April–June schedule for the first time since 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in two postponements in 2020 and 2021.

Overview

Notable updates to postseason appearances

• The Phoenix Suns entered the postseason for the second consecutive season and also clinched the best record in the NBA for the first time since 2005.
• The Miami Heat entered the postseason for the third consecutive season and also clinched the best record in the Eastern Conference for the first time since 2013.
• The Boston Celtics entered the postseason for the eighth consecutive season, currently the longest such streak in the NBA.
  • Boston also won the Eastern Conference and advanced to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2010.
• The Utah Jazz and Milwaukee Bucks entered the postseason for the sixth consecutive season.
• The Philadelphia 76ers entered the postseason for the fifth consecutive season.
• The Brooklyn Nets and Denver Nuggets entered the postseason for the fourth consecutive season.
• The Dallas Mavericks entered the postseason for the third consecutive season.
• The Memphis Grizzlies and Atlanta Hawks entered the postseason for the second consecutive season.
• The Toronto Raptors entered the postseason for the first time since 2020.
• The Golden State Warriors entered the postseason for the first time since 2019.
  • Golden State also won the Western Conference and advanced to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2019 and sixth time since 2015.
• The Minnesota Timberwolves and New Orleans Pelicans entered the postseason for the first time since 2018.
• The Chicago Bulls entered the postseason for the first time since 2017.
• The Los Angeles Lakers missed the postseason for the first time in three years.
• The Portland Trail Blazers missed the postseason for the first time in nine years.
• The Sacramento Kings missed the postseason once again, making their current postseason drought the longest in NBA history (originally starting from 2007 to 2022).

Notable occurrences

• Neither Los Angeles team qualified for the playoffs. The last time this occurred was in 2018. (The Los Angeles Clippers made the play-in as the eighth seed but did not advance.)
• This is the first time where both No. 8 seeds were eliminated in the Page-McIntyre stage by the No. 9 seeded teams.^[1]
• A team with a losing record in the Western Conference (Pelicans) qualified for the playoffs. This previously occurred in 2020.
• For the first time in NBA playoff history, four players aged 22 or younger (Anthony Edwards, Ja Morant, Tyrese Maxey, and Jordan Poole) scored 30 or more points in a game in the same postseason.^[2]
• Anthony Edwards joined Derrick Rose, Tyler Herro, and Magic Johnson in scoring at least 35 points in a playoff game before turning 21.^[3]
• The Utah Jazz became the fifth team in the last 10 postseasons to win a playoff game after trailing by 4-plus points in the final 40 seconds. Teams were 4–701 in that span prior to the game.^[4]
• The Boston Celtics swept the Brooklyn Nets, marking the 46th year in a row that a sweep occurred. The last time a sweep did not occur was in 1976. This was the 182nd series sweep in NBA playoffs history.
• The Philadelphia 76ers and Toronto Raptors series became the first Eastern Conference First Round series to go to a game 6 since 2018.
• The Memphis Grizzlies became the first team ever to have multiple comebacks wins after trailing by double-digits going into the fourth quarter in a single playoff series.^[5]
• The Dallas Mavericks won a playoff series for the first time since their championship run in 2011.
• Chris Paul set a playoff record for most consecutive field goals made in a game without a miss, going 14-of-14 from the field.^[6]
• For the first time since 2019, all top four teams in both the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference made it past the first round of the playoffs.
• For the first time since 2011, no first-round matchup went to a game 7.
• With a game 3 win at Denver, the Golden State Warriors have won a road game in 24 consecutive playoff series, beating the previous record set by the Miami Heat with 23. This record has since been extended to 27 consecutive playoff series with their road wins against Memphis, Dallas, and Boston.^[7]
• Game 1 between the Golden State Warriors and Memphis Grizzlies was the first game in playoff history where three players age 22 or younger (Ja Morant, Jaren Jackson Jr., and Jordan Poole) each had 30-plus points.^[8]
• Ja Morant became the third player in league history to have multiple 45-point games in the postseason before turning 23, joining LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.
• The Dallas Mavericks totaled nine assists against the Phoenix Suns in game 5, the lowest number of assists in a playoff game by a team since 2016.
• For the first time since 2015, every Conference semifinals series went to a game 6.
• The Mavericks–Suns series was the first of the 2022 playoffs to have a game 7, making it the 23rd consecutive NBA postseason to feature a game 7. The last time a game 7 did not occur in the playoffs was 1999. This was the 145th game 7 in NBA playoffs history.
• The Golden State Warriors became the first team to grab 70-plus rebounds in a playoff game since 1983.
• With the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks losing to the Boston Celtics, the 2022 playoffs was the third straight year where the defending champion was eliminated before the conference finals. After the Celtics defeated the Miami Heat, it was also the fifth straight year with a different EC champion.
• With the defending Western Conference champion Phoenix Suns losing to the Dallas Mavericks, this marked the second straight year both of the NBA Finals participants from the previous year were eliminated before the conference finals.
• The Dallas Mavericks made their first Conference finals since 2011.
• Neither the first-seeded team nor the second-seeded team made the Western Conference finals for the first time since 2011.
• In game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals, the Miami Heat failed to get a shot for more than eight minutes, until 3:22 remained in the first quarter. This marked the longest a team has gone with no field goals to start a game in the postseason in 25 years.^[9] Subsequently, all starters for the Heat were outscored by a bench player (Victor Oladipo scored 23 points, more than 18 points from all of the starting five). The 18 points was the lowest number combined in a playoff game since starters were first tracked in 1971 and was also the first time in which a bench player outscores the entire starting lineup.^[10]
• By advancing to the NBA Finals, the Golden State Warriors made their sixth Finals appearance in eight seasons, the first since 1990–98 Chicago Bulls (led by Michael Jordan) to have this feat.
• Stephen Curry joined LeBron James and Michael Jordan as the only players in NBA Finals to score 40 or more points at age 34 or older.
• Jayson Tatum set the all-time NBA record with 100 turnovers in a single postseason.^[11]
• By beating the Celtics, the Warriors became the only team with a non-losing series record (1–1) against the Celtics in the Finals. The Celtics had winning series records in the Finals against the Lakers (9–3), the Hawks (3–1), the Rockets (2–0), the Bucks (1–0) and the Suns (1–0).

Format

Eight teams from each conference participated in the playoffs. The top six teams in each conference, based on winning percentage, directly qualified for the playoffs; the seeding order of those teams was also based on winning percentage. If two or more teams had the same record, standard NBA tiebreaker rules were used.

The NBA Board of Governors approved a format for the 2021–22 season to have a play-in tournament involving the teams ranked 7th through 10th in each conference. The 7th-place team and 8th-place team participated in a "double-chance" game, with the winner advancing to the playoffs as the 7-seed. The loser then played the winner of the elimination game between the 9th-place and 10th-place teams to determine the playoff's 8-seed. The NBA's regular playoff format then proceeded as normal.^[12]

Each conference's bracket was fixed with no reseeding. All rounds were best-of-seven series; a series ended when one team won four games, and that team advanced to the next round. All rounds, including the NBA Finals, were in a 2–2–1–1–1 format with regards to hosting. In the conference playoffs, home court advantage went to the higher-seeded team (number one being the highest). Conference seedings were ignored for the NBA Finals: home court advantage went to the team with the better regular season record, and, if needed, ties were broken based on head-to-head record, followed by intra-conference record.

Playoff qualifying

On March 9, 2022, the Phoenix Suns became the first team to clinch a playoff spot.^[13] On April 5, the San Antonio Spurs and New Orleans Pelicans became the last two teams to qualify for postseason play, as both teams secured spots in the first-stage play-in tournament. On April 7, the Denver Nuggets became the final team to secure a direct berth in the playoff bracket, qualifying as the sixth seed in the Western Conference and relegating the Minnesota Timberwolves to the play-in tournament.^[14] While noted in the below tables, division titles have no bearing on seeding.^[15]

Seeds 7 and 8 in each conference were determined via the first-stage play-in tournament, held April 12–15.

Eastern Conference

Cleveland (44–38) and Charlotte (43–39) also secured play-in berths but did not advance to the playoffs.^[28][27]

Western Conference

The L.A. Clippers (42–40) and San Antonio (34–48) also secured play-in berths but did not advance to the playoffs.^[41][40]

Play-in tournament brackets

Eastern Conference

Bold Game winner
Italic Team with home-court advantage

Western Conference

Bold Game winner
Italic Team with home-court advantage

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, the higher-seeded team, are shown in italics.