This study aimed to identify performance profiles in NBA playoffs and describe performances in the
first and the last games of the series. Thirty games from the official box-scores and player-tracking data of
the 2014/15 NBA playoffs were considered. A k-means cluster analysis was performed to group the players
according to their game performance profiles and a discriminant analysis was conducted to identify the
game-related statistics that best discriminated the groups. The first function correctly classified 64.2% of
the cases and the second function classified 29.9% of the cases. The cluster analysis identified four different
performance profiles and from the discriminant analysis emerged several offensive and defensive variables
to classify the players in the clusters. The identified trends help to improve understanding of the game during
different stages of playoffs. Coaches may use this information to better prepare their teams for different
game scenarios.