Single-elimination tournament

A single-elimination tournament — also called an Olympic system tournament, a knockout (or, knock-out), single penetration, or sudden death tournament — is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each bracket is immediately eliminated from winning the championship or first prize in the event.

This does not always mean that the defeated competitor will not participate further in the tournament; in some such tournaments, consolation or "classification" contests are subsequently held among those already defeated to determine the awarding of lesser places, for example, a third place playoff. Where more than two competitors can play in each match, such as in a shootout poker tournament, players are removed when they can no longer play until one player remains from the group. This player moves on to the next round.

Some competitions are held with a pure single-elimination tournament system. Others have many phases, with the last being a single-elimination final stage called playoffs.

NBA Live (video game series)

NBA Live is a series of basketball video games, published by EA Sports. It is the successor to EA's previous NBA Playoffs and NBA Showdown series. Its main competitor is the NBA 2K series by 2K Sports and formerly Sega.

NBA Playoffs

The predecessor of the NBA Live series was the NBA Playoffs series, which featured Lakers vs. Celtics, released first in 1989 for MS-DOS-compatible PCs and later adapted for consoles in early 1990 for the Sega Mega Drive. This game was played from a horizontal view (while later versions moved to an isometric view before ultimately moving to 3D on newer consoles). The game was one of the first to feature an NBA license, containing both real NBA teams and player likenesses and signature moves. Details such as Horace Grant's goggles are clearly visible, and Michael Jordan's "Air Reverse Layup" is animated with very high accuracy. Player numbers were also visible. The game featured only eight of the sixteen teams that qualified for the NBA playoffs that year, as well as both NBA All-Star teams.