How to Construct an NBA Playoff Bracket

One week into the NBA playoffs, and this week it's madness trying to fill out brackets for the whole thing. I am a rabid fan of tournaments, and professional playoffs provide the ultimate tournament setting.

But then again you ask: how can you follow the playoffs with all those games to play? After all, its not like the NCAA tournament, with its one-and-done setting. All matchups in the NBA playoffs are a race to four wins.

But, alas, I DO have a good solution for following now only the bracket, but the path to the NBA title. This is the method I use with the NHL, MLB, and even when I follow my boys, the Cincinnati Cyclones, go through the East Coast League playoff bracket.

Heres what you do for the construction of the bracket.

1. Go to your nearest Staples or grocery store and buy graph paper. Regular lined paper works, too, but for best results use GRAPH paper (the one with all the squares all over it). Depending on where you get it, and the way you get it, you will probably spend $1-$3, the lowest going if you just get the paper and not a notebook.

2. When you go home, you are going to flip the paper horizontally, so that the long side is facing you. Make sure that that ridiculous three hole deal is on top. REMEMBER: prepare to write horizontally, not the regular way.

3. On the top line, use a pencil to make a rectangle two squares tall and ten squares wide. Skip a line and repeat until you have four 2x10 rectangles. Then, go four lines further down and do the same thing four more times. This is your first round bracket

4. Leaving a space in between, NOW put another 2x10 rectangle next to the second and third on the top and bottom half of the paper. This is your second round.

5. The same thing now, leaving a space in between. This time, a 2x10 rectangle will go on the 2nd rectangle on the top, and the first one on the bottom.

6. Now, to decide the NBA Finalists, put another 2x10 rectangle inbetween the two nearest ones anyway you like.

If your not a fan of the long winded rulemaking, ill now easily construct an example for you.

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The * represents the squares to be used.

Now for the fun part! The playoff tracking.

1. Start by fillling in numbers on the first squares of the two lines of each rectangle, leaving four quares left per line (they will be used later). Per NBA seeding policies, the numbers are as follows:
1 vs 8
4 vs 5
2 vs 7
3 vs 6
... in that order. Since the NBA does not reseed teams for each round, the bracket is fixed. Each year, it is recommended that you put the conference in which the team with the season's best record on the top half of the paper. This year, Boston had the top record, so they get line #1. The 2008 playoff matchups are:

#1 Boston vs. #8 Atlanta
#4 Cleveland vs. #5 Washington
#2 Detroit vs. #7 Philadelphia
#3 Orlando vs. #6 Toronto
#1 LA Lakers vs. #8 Denver
#4 Utah vs. #5 Houston
#2 New Orleans vs. #7 Dallas
#3 San Antonio vs. #6 Phoenix

2. Now, remember those last four squares per line? They will be used to run the playoff table. The first team in each segment to fill up their whole line wins the series. You can fill squares any way you want it. My method is to pay attention to the internet and fill in the game number won by a team until they win four of them (Example: In my Stanley Cup playoff bracket, San Jose beat Calgary four games to three. I actually filled in the games they won ... San Jose 2,4,5,7... Calgary 1,3,6). Others just uses X's, dots, whatever....

Now that you have a bracket to follow, make sure you look up matchups in newspapers and the internet at ESPN.com or NBA.com, but have a blast!