Alright, listen up, y’all. We’re gonna talk about somethin’ called “do playoff points count career points NBA”. I ain’t no fancy expert or nothin’, but I can tell ya what’s what, the way I see it. So, these basketball fellas, they play a whole bunch of games, right? Some in the regular season, some in what they call the “playoffs”. Now, you might think all them points they score just go into one big pile, but it ain’t that simple.
Them regular season points, those count for a fella’s career total. That’s like their everyday work, y’know? But them playoff points? Well, that’s a whole different story.

See, the bigwigs over at the NBA, they decided a long time ago that playoff points don’t get added to a player’s career points. Nope, not a single one. It’s like they got two separate piles, one for the regular games and one for when things get serious in the playoffs. Why? I reckon it’s ’cause they wanna keep things fair and square.
- If they mixed them all together, fellas who get to the playoffs all the time, they’d look a whole lot better, wouldn’t they?
- And that wouldn’t be fair to them fellas who maybe played hard but their teams just weren’t good enough to make it to the playoffs every year.
It’s like comparing apples and oranges, y’know? Regular season is one thing, playoffs is another. You gotta keep ’em separate to really see who’s who.
I heard some folks sayin’, “Why not count ’em all? Points is points, ain’t they?” Well, I guess it ain’t that easy. The NBA, they wanna make sure when they compare players and their careers, they’re lookin’ at the same kinda thing. If you start mixin’ in playoff points, it’s like addin’ water to the soup – it changes the whole flavor.
I mean, think about it. You got this fella, plays his heart out all season, scores a bunch of points. But his team, they just can’t catch a break, don’t make it to the playoffs. Then you got another fella, maybe he didn’t score quite as much in the regular season, but his team’s a powerhouse, goes deep in the playoffs every year. He racks up a bunch of playoff points. If you just added ’em all up, the second fella might look better on paper, but is he really a better player? That’s the kinda thing the NBA’s tryin’ to avoid, I reckon.
So, the long and short of it is, playoff points, they don’t count towards a fella’s career total. They’re important, sure, ’cause they show who can step up when the pressure’s on. But when it comes to the record books, it’s all about them regular season points. That’s how they keep things straight.
Now, I heard tell of some fella named Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. They say he scored a whole heap of points, over 44,000 if you count both regular season and playoffs. But when they talk about his career points, they only talk about the regular season ones. That’s just how it is.

And it ain’t just the basketball fellas, neither. I heard the football fellas and the hockey fellas, they do the same thing. Playoff stats, they keep ’em separate. It’s like they got their own special little world, them playoffs.
Some folks are talkin’ about this new “play-in tournament” thing. Sounds like a way to get more teams into the mix, but the NBA says those games are separate too, not even part of the real playoffs. So, I guess them points don’t count for nothin’ career-wise either.
It all sounds a bit complicated, don’t it? But I guess that’s why them fellas in suits get paid the big bucks, to figure this stuff out. Me? I just like watchin’ the fellas run up and down the court, puttin’ that ball in the hoop. And whether them points count for their career or not, well, a point’s a point in my book, long as it helps the team win.
So there you have it. Playoff points, they’re important for winnin’ championships, but they don’t add up to a fella’s career points in the NBA. It’s all about them regular season games when it comes to the record books. Hope that clears things up for ya. It ain’t rocket science, but it’s somethin’ ya gotta know if you wanna follow these basketball fellas and their fancy games.