Six teams from each of the two conferences automatically advance to the playoffs based on regular season winning percentage, while those teams finishing seven through 10 from each conference compete in the play-in tournament to determine the final two playoff seeds.

Every round of the NBA playoffs features seven-game series with a 2-2-1-1-1 format where the higher seed holds home-court advantage and hosts Games 1, 2, 5 (if necessary) and 7 (if necessary).

The current system now sees the eight teams per conference contesting the first round (and subsequent rounds) of the Playoffs in a best-of-7 with all four rounds of the NBA playoffs played over a best-of-7.

Sixteen teams in total make the NBA playoffs, eight teams from both the Eastern and Western Conference. The top six seeds in each conference advance based on the regular season record. The final two seeds in each conference are determined by the NBA Play-In Tournament.