1975 NBA Playoffs

The 1975 NBA Playoffs was the postseason tournament of the National Basketball Association's 1974–75 season. The tournament concluded with the Western Conference champion Golden State Warriors defeating the Eastern Conference champion Washington Bullets 4 games to 0 in the NBA Finals. Rick Barry was named NBA Finals MVP.

Contents

• Western Conference
• Eastern Conference
• NBA Finals
• References

The Warriors won their third NBA title, first since 1956 as the Philadelphia Warriors, and most recent until 2015.

The playoff format was revised again, as the result of which the first two finishers in each division were guaranteed playoff berths, along with the best third-place team from each conference. Once each conference's qualifiers were selected, they were seeded 1–5, with the fourth and fifth seeds playing a best-of-three series, with the victor advancing to play the first seed in a best-of-seven semifinal, while the second and third seeds played the other semifinal.

The eight-year-old Seattle SuperSonics made their playoff debut, winning the first playoff series in franchise history against the Detroit Pistons. Seattle would go on to make consecutive NBA Finals appearances in 1978 and 1979, winning the championship the latter year.

The Kansas City-Omaha Kings made their first playoff appearance since 1967 as the Cincinnati Royals, and the Houston Rockets made their first playoff appearance since 1969 as the San Diego Rockets.

The 1975 playoffs expanded the number of playoff qualifiers to 10; it would be expanded again to 12 in 1977 and again to its current number of 16 in 1984.

At the time, this was the closest the Chicago Bulls came to an NBA title, losing to the Warriors in the Western Conference Finals 4–3. This was their last Conference Finals appearance as a Western Conference team. They would move to the Eastern Conference (where they remain today) in 1980. They would not reach the East Finals until 1989, and would not win a title until 1991.