NBA Finals featuring Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Rasheed Wallace. It would also be the last NBA Finals to feature Phil Jackson as a head coach. With a Game 7 win over the Boston Celtics, the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Celtics who defeated them in the 2008 NBA Finals to win their 16th NBA Championship. The Lakers would not return to the NBA Finals until 2020, while the Celtics would not return until 2022. Format The 3 division winners and 5 other teams with the most wins from each conference qualified for the playoffs. The seedings are based on each team's record; however, a division winner is guaranteed to be ranked at least fourth, regardless of record. Tiebreak procedures The tiebreakers that determine seedings were: Division leader wins tie from team not leading a division Head-to-head record Division record (if the teams are in the same division) Conference record Record vs. playoff teams, own conference Record vs. playoff teams, other conference Point differential, all games If there were more than two teams tied, the team that wins the tiebreaker get the highest seed, while the other teams were "re-broken" from the first step until all ties were resolved. Since the three division winners were guaranteed a spot in the top four, ties to determine the division winners had to be broken before any other ties. Playoff qualifying Eastern Conference Western Conference — = Not Applicable Home-court advantage The team with the better record earned the home-court advantage through any playoff round, regardless of seeding. (The NBA is the only one of the four major North American leagues that awards home advantage based strictly on record.) Bracket Teams in bold advanced to the next round. The numbers to the left of each team indicate the team's seeding in its conference, and the numbers to the right indicate the number of games the team won in that round. The division champions are marked by an asterisk. Home court advantage in the NBA Finals does not necessarily belong to the higher-seeded team, but instead the team with the better regular season record (for example, the 4th seed in the Western Conference could have a better regular season record than the 3rd seed in the Eastern Conference and would therefore have home court advantage if the two met in the Finals); teams with home court advantage are shown in italics. First