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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.
In the Finals, the Spurs held the New York Knicks, the first 8-seed team to reach the Finals in NBA history, to an average of 79.8 points per game. During the 2003 NBA Finals , the Spurs defeated the New Jersey Nets in six games, which also marked the first championship contested between two former ABA teams.
The NBA Finals is the championship series for the NBA and the conclusion of the sport's postseason. The winning team of the series receives the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy. Players from the winning team usually receive championship rings from the team honoring their contribution, with "rings" becoming shorthand for championships. [3]
The finals were a best-of-3 series from 1949 to 1950, a best-of-5 series from 1951 to 1956, and a best-of-7 series since 1957. The conference finals are currently played in a best-of-7 series like the NBA playoffs and Finals. The two series are played in late May each year after the first and second rounds of the Playoffs and before the Finals.
Cedric Maxwell is the only Finals MVP winner eligible for the Hall of Fame who has not been voted in. [14] On February 14, 2009, during the 2009 NBA All-Star Weekend in Phoenix, then-NBA Commissioner David Stern announced that the award would be renamed the "Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award" in honor of 11-time NBA champion ...
A series win gave the Celtics their 18th championship, one more than the Los Angeles Lakers for the most in NBA history. [6] Their last win was in the 2008 NBA Finals. This is the Celtics' third Finals appearance where they played a team from Texas, as they previously defeated the Houston Rockets in the 1981 and 1986 Finals. [7] [8]
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a major professional basketball league in North America. It was founded in 1946 as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). [ 1 ] The league adopted its current name at the start of the 1949–50 season when it merged with the National Basketball League (NBL). [ 2 ]
The league currently consists of thirty teams, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada. Each team plays 82 games in the regular season. Eight teams from each of the league's two conferences qualify for the playoffs. The winners of the Conference finals advance to the finals to determine the NBA champions.