Data story · NBA Playoffs
The closest NBA playoff games since 2011.
In 1,339 playoff games from 2011 to 2026, exactly one never had a lead bigger than five points at the end of any minute. Only nine never went past six. A close final score is common; a close game is rare.
Every strip on this page is a real NBA Playoffs strip from the Huezle app, drawn by the app’s own code. More about NBA Playoffs.
How to read the strips
Each strip is one playoff game, tip-off on the left and the final buzzer on the right. Each band is one minute and shows the score at the end of it: purple when the away team was leading, gold when the home team was leading, and pale when it was close. A regulation game is 48 bands and every overtime adds five.
A blowout turns dark and stays dark. The games on this page are the opposite: no band ever gets deep, and the colour keeps changing sides. Watch for that flicker between faint purple and faint gold.
Never more than five apart
- Away Leading
- Tied
- Home Leading
It is the palest strip in the category by the biggest lead. But “close” can be measured other ways, and each picks a different game.
Closest on average, and the busiest
- Away Leading
- Tied
- Home Leading
- Away Leading
- Tied
- Home Leading
Lead changes here are counted between minute marks, so a game that swapped leaders twice inside a minute counts once or not at all. The real totals are higher; the ranking is what matters. The typical playoff game in the data had three such changes, and 251 had none.
- Away Leading
- Tied
- Home Leading
With the most at stake
- Away Leading
- Tied
- Home Leading
Finals games are rarely this tight. Only four of the 91 Finals games in the data never had a lead bigger than seven at a minute mark, and two of the four are Game 7s. This one is told in the 2016 Finals game by game, and others like it in NBA playoff Game 7s.
A close score is not a close game. 202 playoff games in the data were decided by three points or fewer, and 47 by a single point. Many of them spent most of the night ten points apart and only tightened at the end. The strip tells the two kinds apart at a glance: a close finish has a dark middle and a pale end, a close game is pale all the way.
In Huezle a pale, flickering strip is the hardest kind to name. Try one and see.
Download on the App StoreFree on iPhoneQuestions
What is the closest NBA playoff game since 2011?
By the biggest lead either team held at the end of a minute, Game 1 of the 2013 Eastern Conference finals: Miami beat Indiana 103–102 in overtime and neither team was ever more than five points ahead.
Which NBA playoff game had the most lead changes?
Counting changes between one minute mark and the next, Game 2 of the 2026 Eastern Conference semifinals, Knicks over 76ers, with fifteen. Official play-by-play counts every change and would give higher numbers.
How many NBA playoff games are decided by one point?
From 2011 to 2026, 47 of 1,339 playoff games, about one in 28.
More guides
- The biggest NBA playoff blowouts since 2011.The most one-sided NBA playoff games from 2011 to 2026, drawn one band per minute: a 61-point lead, a 55-point win, and why the final score is only half the story.
- NBA playoff overtime games since 2011, and the longest ones.The 80 NBA playoff overtime games from 2011 to 2026, drawn minute by minute: how often it happens, the quadruple overtime, and why a late lead is worth so little.
- NBA tip-off trivia: last postseason, minute by minute.The 2026 NBA playoffs as strips of colour before the new season: the Knicks’ 29-point Finals comeback, a 61-point lead, a road Game 7 and a double overtime.
- The NBA Finals since 2011, in five strips.Sixteen NBA Finals from 2011 to 2026 in five minute-by-minute strips: the Heat years, Warriors against Cavaliers, and a run of new champions.
Now try naming one yourself.
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