The National Basketball Association Conference Finals are the Eastern and Western Championship series of the National Basketball Association, a major professional basketball league in North America. The NBA was founded in 1946 as the Basketball Association of America. The league adopted its current name at the start of the 1949–50 season when it merged with the National Basketball League. The league currently consists of 30 teams, of which 29 are located in the United States and 1 in Canada. Each team plays 82 games in the regular season. After the regular season, eight teams from each of the league's two conferences qualify for the playoffs. At the end of the playoffs, the top two teams play each other in the Conference Finals, to determine the Conference Champions from each side, who then proceed to play in the NBA Finals.