Scheduling an NBA game is a complex task in presence of a myriad of competing requirements and preferences. The main objective is to find a feasible solution that optimizes the travel distances for the 30 teams in the league.
League Composition
The NBA is divided into two geographic conferences of 15 teams each — the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. In addition, each conference is divided into three additional geographic divisions of 5 teams each. Thus, the cities with teams in the same division tend to be relatively geographically close to each other. Cities with teams in the same conference but a different division are farther away, but they are generally within one time zone of each other.
Regular Season
Each team in the NBA plays 82 games in the regular season equally split between home and away. Generally each team plays:
- The 4 other teams in their own local division 4 times (16 games)
- 6 of their non-divisional conference teams 4 times (24 games)
- 4 of their non-divisional conference teams 3 times (12 games)
- The 15 teams in the other conference 2 times (30 games)
Half of the games against any given team under bullets 1, 2 and 4 above are at home and half are away. Regarding the 3rd bullet, when a team encounters another one 3 times, it will play one game at home out of the 3 games series against two teams and two games at home against the other two teams.
The process starts by each team submitting 50 potential home game dates to the league. Remember that there are 41 home games in total for every team. To determine the best days. the teams generally have to consider the schedule for their home arena which may be shared with a hockey team, a local college team or traveling events like rock concerts.
Based on that input the NBA staff build the overall schedule by trying to ensure that enough time is allowed for travelling, especially related to long distance travel. If a team has to travel a long distance to play another team, then the league will try to make sure that the traveling team plays 2 or 3 games against other opponents nearby at the same time. For example, if Toronto Raptors is playing at Los Angeles Lakers on the West Coast (three time zones away), then the league will also try to have them play at least two more West Coast teams in the same week. This way Toronto Raptors would not need to travel back home between games and it will spend the entire week in the same time zone.
Additionally, the league will try to give a team at least one day between games as frequently as possible, but there are several games a year that are played the next day after a previous game.
There are several pre-determined days when there are no games, such as holidays and during the All-Star weekend. Note that broadcasters pay lots of money to gain the right to broadcast the NBA, so they have some say in what times games start. For their convenience, they can move the time a game starts to better suit their broadcasting schedule.
Playoffs
In total there are 8 teams in each conference (East and West) that will play in the playoffs starting in April each year. The top six teams in each conference ranked in order by win–loss records, qualify automatically. To determine the remaining 2 teams, in 2021 it was introduced a Play-In Tournament between the next four teams (places 7 to 10 in the standings at the end of the regular season).
Both conferences conduct the playoffs in the traditional bracket format, with all rounds being best-of-seven. The team with home-court advantage (the better seeded team) hosts games 1, 2, 5, and 7, while their opponent hosts games 3, 4, and 6, with games 5, 6 and 7 being played if needed. Once the playoffs start, the bracket is fixed meaning that teams are never “reseeded”, unlike in the NFL and NHL where the strongest remaining teams face the weakest teams in subsequent rounds. This format has been used since 2014, after NBA team owners unanimously voted to change the format.
Finals
The East and West conference champions will meet in the NBA finals in a best-of-seven format. Generally the first game is during the first week of June. The NBA finals are one of the most watched sport events on the planet. Make sure you participate by watching, cheering on one of the teams and why not stake your money on your favourite team to win using one of the online sportsbooks you can find on our pages.