Longest Winning Streak in NBA Playoffs

The 2017 Golden State Warriors won 15 straight games in a single postseason, the longest winning streak in NBA playoff history. They swept their first three rounds and took a 3-0 lead in the Finals before losing Game 4, finishing 16-1. That 15-0 start is the high-water mark for playoff dominance, and no team has opened a postseason with a longer perfect run.

It is worth being precise about what the record measures: consecutive wins within one playoff run, against nothing but playoff teams in best-of-seven series. That is a different, harder record than the regular-season streak. Here is where the 2017 Warriors sit, how the 2001 Lakers pushed them, and why a run like this is so rare.

Longest single-postseason winning streaks

The table shows the longest winning streaks recorded within a single NBA postseason, with the eventual record for that playoff run.

Streak	Team	Postseason result
15	2017 Golden State Warriors	16-1, NBA champions
11	2001 Los Angeles Lakers	15-1, NBA champions
11	1989 Los Angeles Lakers	11-0 start, lost Finals
10	1988 Los Angeles Lakers	15-9, NBA champions

The 2017 Warriors stand alone. Their 15-game streak came from three straight sweeps to open the playoffs, something no other team has managed on the way to a title. The Lakers appear repeatedly because the Showtime and Shaq-Kobe eras produced the deepest playoff runs before Golden State’s peak.

The 2017 Warriors and the near-perfect run

Golden State’s 2017 team, with Kevin Durant added to a core that had already won a title, tore through the Western Conference without losing a game. They swept Portland, Utah and San Antonio, then went up 3-0 on Cleveland in a Finals rematch. The only blemish came in Game 4, a loss that denied them the first perfect postseason in league history.

That single defeat is why the record is a streak rather than a clean 16-0. Even so, 16-1 remains the best winning percentage any team has posted in a modern playoff run, and the 15-0 start is the number every future contender is measured against.

How the 2001 Lakers compare

Before 2017, the 2001 Lakers owned the conversation. They swept the first three rounds to go 11-0, lost Game 1 of the Finals to Philadelphia in overtime, then won the next four to finish 15-1. For a decade and a half that was the model of a team peaking at the right time.

The Warriors matched the 15 wins and bettered the streak, but the two runs are close cousins: both swept their way to the Finals, both lost exactly once, both ended in titles. The difference is that Golden State’s loss came late, preserving a longer unbeaten opening.

Playoff streaks versus the regular season

It is easy to blur the two records, so keep them apart. The longest regular-season winning streak belongs to the 1971-72 Lakers, who won 33 in a row against the full schedule. That number is far larger than any playoff streak, and for good reason: regular-season runs include weaker opponents and back-to-backs, while playoff runs face only the best teams in seven-game series.

For the regular-season side of the story, our page on the longest winning streak in NBA history covers the Lakers’ 33 and how the modern schedule makes it nearly untouchable. The two records reward completely different kinds of consistency.

If you like a run that ends the moment you slip, our Flawless Six game captures the same tension as a playoff streak, where one wrong pick wipes out everything you built.

The short version: the 2017 Golden State Warriors’ 15 straight wins is the longest single-postseason streak in NBA history, edging the 2001 Lakers’ 15-1, and it sits well below the 33-game regular-season record because the playoffs are a far steeper climb.