1981 NBA Playoffs
The 1981 NBA Playoffs was the postseason tournament follow National Basketball Association's 1980-1981 season. The tournament concluded with the Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics winning their 14th overall championship by defeating the Western Conference champion Houston Rockets in the 1981 NBA Finals. Boston's Cedric Maxwell was awarded NBA Finals MVP.
The playoffs were notable for being the only time, to date, a team with a losing record ever advanced as far as the NBA Finals, as the Rockets won their very first Western Conference championship despite finishing with a record of 40-42. Fourteen years later in 1995 they would achieve another successful season despite a relatively sub-par record, finishing 47-35 with the sixth seed in the Western Conference but repeating as NBA champions.
The Indiana Pacers became the fourth and final former American Basketball Association team to make their postseason debut, though two straight losses to the Philadelphia 76ers put a quick end to the Pacers' first playoff run.
With a 2-0 first-round series win over the New York Knicks, the Chicago Bulls won their first playoff series since 1975; they would not win another until 1988.
The 1981 playoffs marked the Milwaukee Bucks' return to the Eastern Conference side of the bracket; the Bucks had spent their first two seasons in the East before moving to the Western Conference for the 1970-71 NBA season.
Bracket
| 1st Round | Conf. Semifinals | Conf. Finals | NBA Finals | |||||||||||||||
| 1 | Phoenix | 3 | ||||||||||||||||
| 5 | Kansas City | 4 | ||||||||||||||||
| 4 | Portland | 1 | ||||||||||||||||
| 5 | Kansas City | 2 | ||||||||||||||||
| 5 | Kansas City | 1 | ||||||||||||||||
| Western Conference | ||||||||||||||||||
| 6 | Houston | 4 | ||||||||||||||||
| 3 | Los Angeles | 1 | ||||||||||||||||
| 6 | Houston | 2 | ||||||||||||||||
| 6 | Houston | 4 | ||||||||||||||||
| 2 | San Antonio | 3 | ||||||||||||||||
| W6 | Houston | 2 | ||||||||||||||||
| E1 | Boston | 4 | ||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Boston | 4 | ||||||||||||||||
| 5 | Chicago | 0 | ||||||||||||||||
| 4 | New York | 0 | ||||||||||||||||
| 5 | Chicago | 2 | ||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Boston | 4 | ||||||||||||||||
| Eastern Conference | ||||||||||||||||||
| 3 | Philadelphia | 3 | ||||||||||||||||
| 3 | Philadelphia | 2 | ||||||||||||||||
| 6 | Indiana | 0 | ||||||||||||||||
| 3 | Philadelphia | 4 | ||||||||||||||||
| 2 | Milwaukee | 3 | ||||||||||||||||
External links
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