1950 NBA Playoffs

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.[1]

Bracket

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.[1][2] 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.[1]

Eastern Division
Semifinals Finals
      
1 Syracuse 2
4 Philadelphia 0
1 Syracuse 2
2 New York 1
2 New York 2
3 Washington 0
Central Division
Semifinals Finals
      
1 Minneapolis 2
4 Chicago 0
1 Minneapolis 2
3 Fort Wayne 0
2 Rochester 0
3 Fort Wayne 2
Western Division
Semifinals Finals
      
1 Indianapolis 2
4 Sheboygan 1
1 Indianapolis 1
2 Anderson 2
2 Anderson 2
3 Tri-Cities 1
League Finals

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.

  Semifinals     Finals
                 
    1  Syracuse 2
  2  Minneapolis 2     2  Minneapolis 4
  3  Anderson 0  

Central Division tiebreakers

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.

Division Semifinals

Western Division

This was the first playoff meeting[lower-alpha 1] between the Olympians and Red Skins.

This was the first playoff meeting[lower-alpha 1] between the Packers and Blackhawks.

Eastern Division

This was the first playoff meeting[lower-alpha 1] between the Nationals and Warriors.

Last playoff meeting:[lower-alpha 1] 1949 Eastern Division Finals (Washington won 2-1)

Central Division

Last playoff meeting:[lower-alpha 1] 1949 Western Division Semifinals (Minneapolis won 2-0)

This was the first playoff meeting[lower-alpha 1] between the Royals and Pistons.

Division Finals

This was the first playoff meeting[lower-alpha 1] between the Olympians and Packers.

This was the first playoff meeting[lower-alpha 1] between the Nationals and Knicks.

This was the first playoff meeting[lower-alpha 1] between the Lakers and Pistons.

NBA Semifinals

(1) Syracuse Nationals have Division semifinals byes.

This was the first playoff meeting[lower-alpha 1] between the Lakers and Packers.

NBA Finals

Main article: 1950 NBA Finals

This was the first playoff meeting[lower-alpha 1] between the Nationals and Lakers.

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Notes identifying the "last playoff meeting" (latest previous meeting) or "first playoff meeting" between two teams refer to BAA and NBA playoffs only—for this inaugural NBA season, that is, only to the BAA playoffs of 1946–47 to 1948–49. (This follows NBA recognition of BAA history as part of its own.)[3] All of the Western teams were new to the NBA; so was Syracuse, which participated in all but one of the Eastern playoff matches.[1][2] As Syracuse advanced from the East, two of the three division champions who composed the two-round League Finals were new to the NBA. Furthermore, only Chicago among the three Central Division playoff teams had been a member of the BAA for more than one season (compare 1947–48)[4] as the other three had moved from NBL to BAA in 1948.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "1949–50 NBA Season Summary". Basketball-Reference.com. Retrieved 2015-03-03.
      Select "Previous Season" from the heading for 1948–49, and so on. Select "Finals" from League Playoffs for the daily schedule of the final series, and so on.
  2. 1 2 "1948–49 BAA Season Summary". Basketball-Reference.com. Retrieved 2015-03-03.
  3. ↑ "NBA Season Recaps". NBA History (nba.com/history). July 1, 2014. Retrieved 2015-03-03.
  4. ↑ "1947–48 BAA Season Summary". Basketball-Reference.com. Retrieved 2015-03-03.

External links

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