How Long Is a Season in the NBA?
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The NBA season is 82 games long, which is much shorter than the seasons in other major professional sports leagues. This can make it difficult to know how long to make your NBA bet seasons.
The NBA season is 82 games long
The NBA season is 82 games long, which is divided into an 82-game regular season and a postseason that can last anywhere from four to seven rounds, depending on how far a team advances.
The regular season begins in late October/early November and runs through mid-April. The postseason starts in late April and can last through June if a team makes it all the way to the NBA Finals.
In recent years, the NBA has experimented with playing a few regular season games in October, but typically the majority of the league’s teams don’t start their campaign until after Halloween.
Teams generally play four games per week during the regular season, with some occasional five-game weeks sprinkled in. There are also sporadic days off built into the schedule, which differ from team to team based on when their individual schedules allow for breaks.
The NBA does not have any sort of bye week or all-star break like other professional leagues (such as the NFL or MLB), so the action runs uninterrupted from start to finish.
The NBA playoffs are 16 games long
The NBA playoffs are 16 games long, with each team playing best-of-seven series. The first two rounds are played within the conference, with the higher seed getting home-court advantage. The conference finals are also played best-of-seven, with the higher seed again having home-court advantage. The NBA Finals are a best-of-seven series between the winners of the Eastern and Western conferences.
The NBA Finals are 7 games long
The National Basketball Association (NBA) Finals are a best-of-seven championship series played between the Western Conference and Eastern Conference champions to determine the National Basketball Association (NBA) champion. The series is played in a 2–2–1–1–1 format (the team with home-court advantage plays Games 1, 2, 5 and 7 at home), meaning that one team has home-court advantage in the series. Prior to the 1949–50 season, NBA Finals always matched Eastern Division teams against Western Division teams, regardless of win–loss records.
The first five games of the series are played at the home arenas of the lower seed team; the final two, if necessary, are played at the home arena of the higher seed. There have been numerous instances where a team has won all seven games in their own arena—the most recent being the Golden State Warriors in 2018 who did so en route to their third championship in four years. In fact, since 1984 when the NBA went to a 2-3-2 format for Finals games (prior to that it was 2-2-1-1-1), this has occurred 11 times. The other 10 times this happened were:
1984: Los Angeles Lakers (Won 4-2 vs. Boston Celtics)
1985: Los Angeles Lakers (Won 4-2 vs. Boston Celtics)
1986: Boston Celtics (Won 4-2 vs. Houston Rockets)
1987: Los Angeles Lakers (Won 4=2 vs. Boston Celtics)
1988: Los Angeles Lakers (Won 4=0 vs. Detroit Pistons)
2001: Los Angeles Lakers (Won 4=1 vs. Philadelphia 76ers)
2002: Los Angeles Lakers (Won 4=0 vs. New Jersey Nets)
2008: Boston Celtics ( Won4 = 2 New Jersey Nets ) Reviewed by ABA Referee Lou Podesta source needed ) 2009 : Los Angeles Lakers 2010 :BostonCeltics
