1950 NBA Playoffs
| 1950 NBA playoffs | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | 1949–50 | ||||
| Teams | 12 | ||||
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The 1950 NBA Playoffs was the postseason tournament of the inaugural National Basketball Association 1949–50 season. The tournament concluded with the Central Division champion Minneapolis Lakers defeating the Eastern Division champion Syracuse Nationals 4 games to 2 in the NBA Finals.
Twelve teams qualified for the playoffs. Including tiebreaker games that preceded two of the six first-round series, they began play on Monday to Wednesday, March 20 to 22, and the best-of-seven Finals concluded in game six on Sunday, April 23. The champions played the greatest number of games, 13 in a span of 34 days, on a schedule including both back-to-back games and as many as six days off.
The NBA was created in 1949 by merger of two competing professional basketball leagues, the BAA and NBL. For its first season only, the NBA teams were arranged in three divisions: Eastern, comprising the five surviving BAA Eastern Division teams plus Syracuse from the NBL; Central, comprising the five surviving BAA Western Division teams; and Western, comprising the NBL teams except Syracuse. Within each division the top four teams were matched in two rounds of short series to generate a champion, after which the three division champions contended for the NBA title. With three contenders the third round of the tournament comprised a bye for one and a best-of-three match between the other two.
The three Division Champions were seeded 1-3 based on their respective regular season records, with the top seed earning a bye into the NBA Finals.
Rochester Royals vs. Minneapolis Lakers: Lakers win series 1-0
Fort Wayne Pistons vs. Chicago Stags: Pistons win series 1-0
Minneapolis gets #1 seed, Rochester gets #2 seed, Fort Wayne gets #3 seed, Chicago gets #4 seed.
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