Pelicans playoff race: How do tiebreakers work in the NBA?

With the New Orleans Pelicans in the heart of the storm that is the Western Conference playoff picture, many people may be wondering what would happen to the team in the event of a tie. Who do they hold a tiebreaker over? Who holds a tiebreaker over them? How does the league go about deciding these things?

In this post, we’ll focus on answering that last question. We will break down the league’s protocols for breaking ties at the end of the regular season; so that while you are running through all the random standing hypotheticals that could be possible for this team, you will know how each potential tie will play out.

To do this, we are going to need to use an example. So, for the sake of simplicity, let’s imagine that the Pelicans end the season tied with the Golden State Warriors (one of their four opponents this week).

The first thing the league looks at when deciding who wins the tiebreaker is the two team’s head-to-head record against one another. So, if the Pelicans beat the Warriors in three of their four meetings this year (which is what would be the case if they beat them this week), they would get the tiebreaker.

But to keep the hypothetical moving, let’s just say that the two teams split the season series 2-2. In that case, if one of those teams is a division leader while the other is not, then the division leader would win the tie (see, NBA divisions do matter!). In this case, the two teams are in different divisions, but neither party is remotely close to being a division leader.

If the two teams were in the same division, the next thing the league would look at is division win percentage. Since, as we said, both teams are in different divisions, this method would not be used.

Next, the league looks at each team’s win percentage against their conference. In this case, the Pelicans are 25-20 (.555) against the Western Conference. Meanwhile, the Warriors own a 25-21 in conference record (.543). So, if it came to this, the Pelicans would win the tiebreaker as of right now.

If, for some reason, the two teams in question ended up being tied in this category as well by season’s end, the next step would be to compare each team’s win percentage against the teams eligible for the playoffs in their conference (including the team they are tied with for the spot).

If that still results in a draw, then you look at each team’s win percentage against the teams eligible for the playoffs in the opposite conference. So for the Warriors and Pelicans hypothetical, we would look at the Eastern Conference playoff teams.

And lastly, if that doesn’t do the job, you compare the two team’s point differentials. As it stands, our Pelicans are beating the defending champions in this category, too, owning a +1.5 point differential compared to the Warriors’ +0.4.

(Note: these are the rules for a two-way tiebreaker. The league has a different set of rules in place in the event of a three-way tie. Those rules can be found here).