2025 NBA playoffs

• 1. Introduction

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  The 2025 NBA playoffs began on April 19 with a tournament that looked, on paper, like a coronation for one of three teams. Oklahoma City had finished 68-14, the best record in the league. Cleveland had won 64 games. Boston, the defending champion, had won 61. What nobody forecast was that a fourth-seeded team from Indiana would take the heavy favorite to a game seven in the Finals, or that their point guard would tear his Achilles tendon just as his improbable run seemed destined for glory. Nor did anyone expect a franchise whose last championship came in 1979, under a different name in a different city, to finally close that gap. This postseason set dozens of records, produced five comeback victories of 15 or more points from a single team, and ended with the first NBA Finals game seven since 2016.

• 2. The Favorites Fall

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  Boston's second-round series against the New York Knicks ended the defending champions' title defense in a way no one anticipated. Jayson Tatum suffered an Achilles tendon rupture during that series. The Celtics had already set an NBA playoff record in Game 1 by missing 45 three-point attempts. The Knicks then became the first team in league history to come back from 20 points or more in back-to-back playoff games, and Boston became the first team to blow back-to-back 20-point leads in the playoffs. New York advanced in six games. The elimination of Boston, combined with Cleveland's second-round loss to Indiana, marked the first time since 2007 that two 60-win teams had both been knocked out before the conference finals. It also guaranteed a seventh different NBA champion in seven years, the first such run in NBA history.

  Cleveland had swept Miami in the first round behind Donovan Mitchell's 30-point performances, including a 55-point blowout in Game 4 that set the record for the largest series-clinching victory in NBA history. The Cavaliers' combined 122-point series margin against the Heat was also the largest ever recorded. Cleveland then fell to Indiana in five games in the second round, becoming the first Eastern Conference team to win 62 or more games and fail to reach the conference finals. The 64-win Cavaliers had gone 36-5 against every team except Indiana across the regular season and playoffs, with all five losses coming to the Pacers.

• 3. Indiana's Impossible Run

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  Tyrese Haliburton's crossover layup over Giannis Antetokounmpo with 1.1 seconds left in overtime sent Indiana past Milwaukee in Game 5 of the first round. The Bucks had led by four points with 60 seconds left and by seven with 45 seconds remaining. Damian Lillard had already torn his Achilles in the first quarter of Game 4, and Gary Trent Jr. scored 12 overtime points for Milwaukee entirely from three-point range before a fumble gave Indiana the ball back with 10.1 seconds on the clock.

  In the second round against Cleveland, Indiana trailed by 20 in the third quarter of Game 2 before Haliburton hit a game-winning three. The Pacers led by 41 points at halftime in Game 4, tying the playoff record set by Cleveland in the 2017 Eastern Conference Finals. They advanced to back-to-back conference finals for the first time since 2013 and 2014, and became the first team to reach consecutive conference finals as a fourth seed or lower.

  Against the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals, Aaron Nesmith made six three-pointers in the fourth quarter of Game 1, a feat with no precedent in NBA history. Haliburton's Game 4 line of 30 points, 15 assists, and 10 rebounds with no turnovers was also without precedent in any NBA playoff game. The Pacers won the series in six, their fifth comeback of 15 or more points coming when they trailed by 9 or more in the final minute of Game 1 and still won, the first time that had happened in the play-by-play era.

• 4. Oklahoma City's Dominance

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  Game 1 against Memphis produced the largest margin of victory in any Game 1 in NBA playoff history: a 51-point Thunder win. It was also the fifth-largest margin in any playoff game. Oklahoma City then trailed Memphis by 26 points at halftime in Game 3 and came back to win, the largest halftime deficit overcome in postseason history. The sweep extended the Thunder's winning streak over the Grizzlies to 12 games combined across the regular season and playoffs.

  Against Denver in the second round, the Thunder scored 87 points in the first half of Game 2, matching the NBA playoff record for points in a half set by the Milwaukee Bucks in the 1978 Western Conference Semifinals. The series went seven games, with Oklahoma City prevailing in what was described as the second-most lopsided seven-game series in NBA history by margin. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic were the top two MVP candidates entering that matchup, the first time two such players had met in a playoff series since the 2017 first round when James Harden's Rockets defeated Russell Westbrook's Thunder.

  Oklahoma City's turnover differential across the entire postseason surpassed the 2019 Toronto Raptors' record of plus-79, the all-time best in a single playoff run. Oklahoma City reached that mark in 12 games; the Raptors had taken 24. The Thunder followed by defeating Minnesota in five games in the Western Conference Finals, clinching their Finals berth on their home court, the first time since 2015 that both conference champions clinched at home.

• 5. The Finals

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  The 18-game difference in regular-season wins between Oklahoma City and Indiana was the largest gap between NBA Finals participants since the 1981 series between the 62-win Boston Celtics and the 40-win Houston Rockets. The Thunder were also the youngest team to reach the Finals since the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers, and the first Finals since the salary cap era began in 2002 to feature no luxury tax team.

  In Game 1, Indiana won despite leading for only 20 seconds, matching a record held by the 1999 San Antonio Spurs and the 2002 Los Angeles Lakers. Haliburton's go-ahead shot with 0.3 seconds left was the latest game-winner in a Finals game since Michael Jordan's buzzer-beater in Game 1 of the 1997 Finals. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander responded by scoring 72 combined points across Games 1 and 2, surpassing Allen Iverson's record of 71 set in 2001. In Game 5, Jalen Williams became the third-youngest player since the ABA-NBA merger to score at least 40 points in a Finals game. Williams and Gilgeous-Alexander joined LeBron James and Kyrie Irving as the only teammates since 1980 to each reach 40 and 30 points respectively in the same Finals game.

  In Game 6, the Pacers became the first team in NBA history to have eight players score at least 200 points in a single playoffs, forcing a Game 7, the first in the Finals since 2016. Haliburton tore his Achilles in the first quarter of that game. Oklahoma City won 103-91. The Thunder moved to a 19-2 record after a loss across the entire season, surpassing the 1986-87 Lakers for the best winning percentage in NBA history following a defeat. Gilgeous-Alexander became the fourth player to win the scoring title, regular-season MVP, and Finals MVP in the same season, and the first since Shaquille O'Neal of the Los Angeles Lakers in 2000.

• 6. From Seattle to Oklahoma City

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  The Thunder's 68-14 regular-season record was the best in franchise history. It gave them the first seed in the Western Conference for the second consecutive season and also earned them the Maurice Podoloff Trophy, awarded for the best overall record in the NBA, for the first time in franchise history. Their championship ended a drought stretching back to 1979, when the franchise played as the Seattle SuperSonics.

  Across the bracket, the postseason produced historic moments at nearly every level. The Miami Heat, entering as the tenth seed, became the first team ever to advance from the play-in tournament as a tenth seed, beating Atlanta in an overtime road game. The Detroit Pistons snapped a 15-game playoff losing streak spanning 17 years, the longest in NBA history, by beating the Knicks in Game 2 of their first-round series. The Pistons then lost 10 consecutive home playoff games, setting a new record in the other direction. Rudy Gobert scored a personal playoff high of 27 points and grabbed 24 rebounds in Minnesota's series-clinching game against the Los Angeles Lakers, who were eliminated in the first round as a third seed or higher for the first time in franchise history. The Pacers' run, which included Haliburton's four game-tying or game-winning shots and five 15-point comebacks, is already considered one of the most surprising postseason journeys the league has seen.