The NBA conference finals are the Eastern and Western Conference championship series of the National Basketball Association (NBA), a major professional basketball league in North America. The NBA was founded in 1946 as the Basketball Association of America (BAA).[1] The NBA adopted its current name at the start of the 1949–50 season when the BAA merged with the National Basketball League (NBL).[2] The league currently consists of 30 teams, of which 29 are located in the United States and 1 in Canada. Each team plays 82 games in the regular season.[A] After the regular season, eight teams from each of the league's two conferences qualify for the playoffs. At the end of the playoffs, the top two teams play each other in the conference finals, to determine the conference champions from each side, who then proceed to play in the NBA Finals. Trophies were given to each conference winner starting in 2001. In 2022, the league started naming an NBA Conference Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) for each conference.[3]
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