The NBA playoffs consist of four main rounds: the First Round, Conference Semifinals, Conference Finals, and the NBA Finals. Each round is a best-of- seven series, meaning a team must win four games to advance to the next round
- There are 16 teams in the playoffs (8 from each conference).
- Each round can have up to 7 games if needed.
- The series format is 2–2–1–1–1, where the team with home-court advantage hosts games 1, 2, 5, and 7, and the opponent hosts games 3, 4, and 6
Thus, the maximum number of games in the entire NBA playoffs is:
- 4 rounds × 7 games per series × 8 series total (4 per conference) = 224 games maximum.
However, many series end before 7 games, so the actual number played is usually fewer. Additionally, before the playoffs, there is a play-in tournament involving teams ranked 7th to 10th in each conference to determine the final playoff seeds, but it is considered separate from the playoffs proper
