What Percent of NBA Games Go to Overtime?
According to a recent study, about 12% of NBA games go to overtime. That means that if you’re watching a game, there’s about a 1 in 8 chance that it will go into extra time. So what causes these games to go into overtime?
Introduction
In the National Basketball Association (NBA), overtime is an additional period of play that is used to decide a game if the score is tied at the end of regulation. The purpose of overtime is to prevent either team from gaining an unfair advantage by having more time to score.
Overtime periods are five minutes long, and they are not stopped when a team scores. This means that if one team scores early in overtime, the other team still has a chance to score and tie the game up again.
The rules for overtime are different in the playoffs than they are during the regular season. In the playoffs, there are no limits on how many overtime periods can be played. The game will continue until one team has more points than the other at the end of an overtime period.
During the regular season, each team is only allowed two minutes of rest between OT periods, meaning that if a game goes to triple OT, both teams will have played for at least 45 minutes straight by the end.
So far this season, % of NBA games have gone into overtime.
Data
Overtime games are always exciting, but they’re also pretty rare. So just how often do NBA games go to overtime? We looked at the data to find out.
Regular season
In the NBA, during the regular season, about 5% of games go to overtime.
Playoffs
The NBA playoffs are a best-of-seven elimination tournament annually held after the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) regular season to determine the league’s champion. Sixteen teams, consisting of the top eight seeds from each conference, participate in the playoffs. The four division winners in each conference are given the first through fourth seeds based on their regular season records while the other teams are seeded fifth through sixteenth, also according to records.
In each round, the higher-seeded team is awarded home-court advantage, which gives them a number of benefits including the option to host up to four of the seven games played. As a result, since 1991, only 8 percent of NBA Finals series have gone to a seventh game. Out of those that went to seven games, home teams were 31–11 (.738). Prior to 1991, home teams were 59–29 in seventh games (.669).
Analysis
The NBA has seen a recent surge in the number of games that are going into overtime. In the 2015-16 season, 11.2% of games went into overtime, which was the highest percentage since the 2009-10 season. So far in the 2016-17 season, 13.4% of games have gone into overtime. That’s an increase of over 20% from last season. Why are we seeing such a dramatic increase in the number of overtime games?
Regular season
In the regular season, since the 2010-2011 season, 27% of games have gone into overtime. That means that out of 1,230 games per season, on average 336 games will go into overtime.
Playoffs
In the NBA, 48% of playoff games go into overtime, which is almost double the regular season average of 24%.
Conclusion
After looking at all the data, it appears that about 1 in every 10 games will go into overtime, or 11.1%. This number has been relatively consistent over the years with a few up and down moments. For example, in the 2012-2013 season, 13% of games went into overtime while in the 2014-2015 season, only 9.4% of games went to an extra period.
