After winning Friday's final games of the NBA Play-In Tournament, the New Orleans Pelicans and Miami Heat enter this weekend as the No. 8 seeds in their respective conferences. And they both face a tough road ahead in the 2024 NBA playoffs.
Since the NBA expanded to 16 playoff teams in the 1983-84 season, just six of 80 teams (7.5%) have ever won a first-round series as a No. 8 seed against a No. 1 seed. The most recent instance came last year, when the Heat upset the Milwaukee Bucks before making a run to the NBA Finals.
This year's No. 8 seeds could be without their top scorers in Zion Williamson (Pelicans) and Jimmy Butler (Heat), both of whom are unlikely to play in the opening round against the Oklahoma City Thunder and Boston Celtics, respectively. Still, those teams will look to defy the odds and join the list of some of the biggest upsets in NBA playoffs history.
1994: Denver Nuggets def. Seattle SuperSonics, 3-2
Before the Nuggets made history in this series, many openly wondered whether it was even possible for a No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 8 seed after the NBA expanded the postseason field a decade earlier.
Those cries grew louder after Denver lost the first two games by double digits, but the Nuggets rode three different leading scorers — Reggie Williams (Game 3), LaPhonso Ellis (Game 4) and Robert Pack (Game 5) — to erase an 0-2 deficit and eventually win the series with an overtime victory in Game 5.
This series was also a masterclass for Dikembe Mutombo, who averaged 12.6 points, 12.2 rebounds and 6.2 blocks to outshine Seattle's Shawn Kemp and help enshrine the '94 Nuggets in basketball lore.
1999: New York Knicks def. Miami Heat, 3-2
The lockout-shortened 1998-99 NBA season was unusual in plenty of ways, and this certainly isn't the most shocking upset on this list given these teams were separated by just six wins in that 50-game campaign.
Still, the Heat — led by Alonzo Mourning and Tim Hardaway — were clearly supposed to beat the Knicks in the first round. Instead, New York stole Game 1 and traded wins before Allan Houston hit the game-winning shot in Game 5 to win the series.
The Knicks went on to reach the NBA Finals before losing to the San Antonio Spurs and then-rising star Tim Duncan, who won Finals MVP in just his second season in the league.
2007: Golden State Warriors def. Dallas Mavericks, 4-2
It may be hard to imagine Golden State as a plucky underdog after the last decade, but the "We Believe" Warriors were supposed to get blown out by a Mavericks team that won 67 games after reaching the NBA Finals the year before.
Instead, the trio of Baron Davis (25 PPG), Stephen Jackson (22.8) and Jason Richardson (19.5) outshined MVP winner Dirk Nowitzki (19.7) in a six-game series win that many still consider to be the biggest upset in NBA playoffs history.
The magic ended shortly thereafter for the Dubs, who lost 4-1 to the Utah Jazz in the second round. Two years later, they drafted a young guard by the name of Stephen Curry, and the rest is history.
2011: Memphis Grizzlies def. San Antonio Spurs, 4-2
Before the Warriors lorded over the league in the 2010s, the Spurs were the NBA's preeminent dynasty and had won 61 games entering the first round of the 2011 postseason.
They met their match against the "Grit and Grind" Grizzlies, with Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol patrolling the paint and Mike Conley making life difficult for the Spurs' star guards.
Duncan averaged just 12.7 points across six games in this series, which saw Memphis win three of the first four games and close it out at home behind 31 from Randolph in Game 6.
2012: Philadelphia 76ers def. Chicago Bulls, 4-2
A win is a win, but this series probably deserves an asterisk given the circumstances around the 76ers' series victory.
Behind MVP winner Derrick Rose, the Bulls won 50 of 66 games — good for a 62-win pace — in the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season to set up this Round 1 matchup. Then Rose tore his ACL in the final minutes of Game 1, and Philadelphia won three straight before closing it out with a 1-point home win in Game 6.
The Sixers bowed out in seven games to the Boston Celtics in Round 2, while the Bulls still haven't advanced past the second round in more than a decade since.
2023: Miami Heat def. Milwaukee Bucks, 4-1
Another series marred by a superstar injury, Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo left early in Game 1 with a back injury and missed Game 2 and Game 3 before returning for the final two games of this series.
By that point, the Heat had secured a 2-1 series edge behind an inspired effort from Jimmy Butler, who then scored 56 points in Game 4 and added 42 more in Game 5 to close out the 58-win Bucks.
Miami went on to win the East for the second time in four seasons, though the Nuggets proved to be too much in the NBA Finals.
Full history of No. 8 seeds upsetting No. 1 seeds
| Year | 1st-round upset | Playoff result |
| 1994 | Nuggets over SuperSonics (3-2) | Lost in second round |
| 1999 | Knicks over Heat (3-2) | Lost in NBA Finals |
| 2007 | Warriors over Mavericks (4-2) | Lost in second round |
| 2011 | Grizzlies over Spurs (4-2) | Lost in second round |
| 2012 | 76ers over Bulls (4-2) | Lost in second round |
| 2023 | Heat over Bucks (4-2) | Lost in NBA Finals |
Has a No. 8 seed ever won the NBA Finals?
Of the six teams to beat a No. 1 seed as a No. 8 seed, only two of them — the 1994 Knicks and 2023 Heat — have gone on to reach the NBA Finals.
Both of them ultimately met their end in the championship round in a five-game series loss to a No. 1 seed. The Knicks fell to the Spurs in the first title win of their eventual dynasty, while the Heat were the final victims of the Nuggets' first-ever championship run.
The other four No. 8 seeds to score a seismic upset in the first round all lost in the second round. In total, No. 1 seeds have won 74 of 80 possible matchups with No. 8 seeds entering the 2024 NBA playoffs.
