The National Basketball Association (NBA) Playoffs is a best-of-seven elimination tournament among sixteen teams in the Eastern Conference and Western Conference (called Divisions, pre-1970), ultimately deciding the final four teams who will play in the NBA Conference Finals.

The NBA announced the current revised playoff seeding system on August 3, 2006. Following the NBA regular season, eight teams in each conference qualify for the playoffs and are seeded one to eight.

The team that has the best record in each of the three divisions in each conference is declared division champion. The three champions, and another team in the conference with the best record, are seeded one through four by their records. This guarantees that the division champions will be no lower than fourth seed, and also ensures that a conference's two best teams (by record) are ranked as the top two. However, because the NBA does not re-seed its teams and because home court advantage goes to the team with the better record, not the better seeding, division winners are guaranteed no better than a de-facto five seed, as their 4th seeding does not guarantee home court advantage in the first round, and after the first round the 4 vs 5 winner will play the same teams as the loser would have played had they won the first round. This will continue throughout the remainder of the playoffs and to the finals until the 4 vs 5 winner loses a playoff round or wins the championship. Of the remaining eleven conference teams, the four with the best records are seeded fifth through eighth based on their record.

Daniel "Danny" Green (born 9 March 1973) is an Australian professional boxer and the former IBO cruiserweight champion.

Born in Perth, Western Australia, he had success at the State Amateur level led to him being selected for an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship to prepare for 1998 Commonwealth Games and the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

Green qualified for the Olympic team, stopping Brazilian Laudelino Barros in the fourth and final round of his first bout. However, Green was technically knocked out in the later rounds of his bout against Russian Alexander Lebziak due to Lebziak holding a points advantage that was seen to be too great for Green to overcome - a regulatory circumstance typically viewed in Olympic boxing as an indication that one fighter is outclassed by the other - boxing fights within Olympic contests (unlike professional boxing) are often stopped if and when a fighter is deemed to be so significantly behind on points that the likelihood of him recovering the disadvantage and being successful is seen to be marginal. In these circumstances that are defined by a set threshold margin between the points each boxer attains throughout the bout, due to health and safety concerns the fight is stopped if one boxer has a points lead that is equal to or greater than the set threshold. After the bout was stopped for these purposes and because Alexander Lebziak attained such a points lead, Green claimed his hand was broken and spoke of the fight in terms that attributed the loss to his broken hand. However, right from the start of the contest and throughout the entire bout Lebziak was noticeably dominant and Green sustained what many believed to be facial injuries from Lebziak's punches. Lebziak was an excellent Russian boxer and he then went on to claim the Olympic Gold Medal.

Kevin Wayne Durant (born September 29, 1988) is an American professional basketball forward with the Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball Association (NBA). A 6'9" small forward, Durant was the consensus 2007 National College Player of the Year and the 2006–2007 Big 12 Player of the Year, amongst other awards. After a standout freshman season at the University of Texas, Durant opted to enter the NBA Draft, where he was selected second overall by the Seattle SuperSonics. There he went on to win the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after his debut season. In 2007, Durant signed an endorsement contract with Nike. In the 2009–10 season Durant led the NBA in scoring and became the youngest player ever to win the NBA scoring title. He would later be named to the 2010 All NBA First Team.

Serge Jonas Ibaka Ngobila (born September 18, 1989), commonly referred to as Serge Ibaka, is a Congolese-Spanish professional basketball player, playing the power forward position for the Oklahoma City Thunder of the NBA. Ibaka was drafted by the Thunder's former incarnation, the Seattle SuperSonics with the 24th overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft. He is referred to as Air Congo by his teammates. Serge is the third youngest among eighteen siblings. Although born in the Republic of the Congo, Ibaka represents Spain in international competition.

Ibaka was born in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo. Both his mother and his father were basketball players. His father played at the Republic of Congo and with the Congolese national team, and his mother played for the Democratic Republic of Congo. He started playing basketball at a very young age with his first club, Avenir du Rail, using the sport as an escape amongst his mother's untimely death and his father's imprisonment during the Second Congo War.