Summary
Two of the NBA's franchises moved to larger cities, the Fort Wayne Pistons to Detroit and the Rochester Royals to Cincinnati. That left Syracuse as the only team in a market with less than a million people.
The Boston Celtics and St. Louis Hawks, who had met in the previous season's finals, dominated their divisions. They both won by eight games, but the Celtics had the better record, 49-23 to the Hawks' 41-31.
For the first time, the division finals were best-of-seven series. Boston and St. Louis both won in five games to set up a rematch in the championship finals.
The Celtics' hopes for a repeat were devastated when Bill Russell, the league's most valuable player, sprained an ankle in the third game. He missed the rest of the series and the Hawks won in six, with Bob Pettit scoring 50 points in the final game, a 110-109 win. All four St. Louis victories were by 3 points or less.
During the regular season, Detroit's George Yardley set a new record with 2,001 points to win the scoring title, and Russell's 1564 rebounds, an average of 22.7 per game, was also a record. Bob Cousy of Boston won the assists title for the seventh straight year.
Dolph Schayes of Syracuse finished second to Yardley, but surpassed George Mikan as the NBA's all-time career scorer.
