European Basketball Terminology: American English Equivalents

Question
I am translating a book from Italian to American English, and there is a lot about basketball in the beginning. What is being discussed is European basketball and not American, but I need to know if I have the correct American equivalents for what is written.

EXAMPLE 1 (my translation): At the end of the season, against all expectations, we made the playoffs. They blew us away at the first round ?we didn抰 even win a match  ?but for a small, cash-strapped team like ours to have gotten that far was in itself a great success, something that deserved to be celebrated fittingly.

MY QUESTION: Does it make sense in basketball to refer to a "round" as the first part of a match in basketball playoffs? If not, what would be the right thing to call it?

EXAMPLE/QUESTION 2: Is it correct to refer to a group of people playing basketball as a "team," a "club," and/or a "franchise"? Are all these terms valid? If an American would never refer to a basketball club (the way we talk about baseball clubs), then what would be right to say?

Answer
Hi Catherine,

for Question 1, in a basketball tournament, yes, "round" is an appropriate term to use.

For Question 2, any of those terms can be used to describe a group. A  team would probably be the most popular, a club second, and with regard to a franchise, that's really only used in professional sports. The Los Angeles Lakers is a franchise because its part of the NBA. Otherwise, the other terms are fine.


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