1976 NBA playoffs
postseason tournament
The 1976 NBA playoffs was the postseason tournament of the National Basketball Association's 1975–76 season. The tournament concluded with the Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics defeating the Western Conference champion Phoenix Suns 4 games to 2 in the NBA Finals. The series was highlighted by Game 5, a 3-OT victory by Boston. The Celtics won their 13th NBA title, second in the Dave Cowens era. Jo Jo White was named NBA Finals MVP.
This is the last postseason that had a 10 team format before the 1977 playoffs expanded to 12 teams.
The Suns earned their first two playoff series victories in franchise history to advance to the NBA Finals; they won their second Western Conference title in 1993, and their third title in 2021.
The sixth-year Cleveland Cavaliers made their first playoff appearance and won their first playoff series. They wouldn't win another playoff series until 1992.
This was the final playoff appearance for the Buffalo Braves franchise in Buffalo until 1992, when they returned as the Los Angeles Clippers.
This would prove the last Conference Finals appearance for the Golden State Warriors until 2015 under the leadership of Steph Curry.
The public source identifies “1976 NBA playoffs” as postseason tournament. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around playoffs, postseason and tournament.
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This entry incorporates text from “1976 NBA playoffs” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.