How the NBA Works
The NBA is a 30-team league split into two conferences of 15. The regular season runs from late October through mid-April, and each team plays 82 games. The postseason runs from mid-April to mid-June and includes a Play-In Tournament plus four best-of-7 playoff rounds.
Season at a glance
- Late Oct—mid April: Regular season. 82 games per team.
- Late Oct—mid Dec: Emirates NBA Cup runs concurrently with the regular season.
- Mid April: Play-In Tournament. Seeds 7–10 in each conference compete for the #7 and #8 playoff spots.
- Mid April—early June: Playoffs. 16 teams, 4 rounds, every round best-of-7.
- Early to mid June: NBA Finals.
Conferences and the Regular Season
The 30 teams are divided into two conferences of 15—the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. Each conference is further split into three divisions of five, but divisions barely matter for the postseason—all that counts is conference standing.
Each team plays 82 games: 52 against conference opponents, 30 against the other conference. At the end of the regular season, teams are seeded 1–15 within each conference by win percentage (with tiebreakers). Seeds 1–6 go directly to the playoffs; 7–10 enter the Play-In Tournament; 11–15 are eliminated.
The Emirates NBA Cup (In-Season Tournament)
The NBA Cup is a mini-tournament layered on top of the regular season. All 30 teams are drawn into six groups of five (three per conference). Each team plays four designated “Cup Night” games (Tuesdays and Fridays in November) against group opponents.
Group play (Nov): Each team plays 4 group games. The 6 group winners plus 2 wild cards (one per conference) advance to the knockout round.
Knockout rounds (early Dec): Single-elimination quarterfinals at higher seeds’ home courts.
Semifinals & Final (mid Dec): Held at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Winner is crowned NBA Cup Champion.
Group-play and knockout games do count toward regular-season standings—the one exception is the final in Las Vegas, which doesn’t count toward the 82. Stars play; nobody treats it as an exhibition. The NBA added the Cup in 2023 to give the November schedule more narrative weight.
The Play-In Tournament
After the 82-game regular season ends, seeds 7 through 10 in each conference enter the Play-In Tournament. They’re competing for the conference’s #7 and #8 playoff seeds. Four teams from each conference, two playoff spots—two teams get through, two are eliminated.
Game A—7 vs 8: Winner clinches the #7 seed and goes to the playoffs. Loser gets a second chance in Game C.
Game B—9 vs 10: Single elimination. Loser’s season is over.
Game C—Game A loser vs Game B winner: Winner claims the #8 seed and heads to the playoffs. Loser is eliminated.
The asymmetry is by design: 7-seeds and 8-seeds get a second chance; 9-seeds and 10-seeds have to win twice in a row to make it. Play-In games are single-elimination and tend to be incredibly tense—one bad quarter can end the season.
The Playoffs
Once the Play-In fills the #7 and #8 seeds, 16 teams (8 per conference) are in the playoff bracket. Every round is a best-of-7 series—the first team to four wins advances.
First Round: 1v8, 2v7, 3v6, 4v5 within each conference. Best of 7.
Conference Semifinals: Round-1 winners face off inside their conference. Best of 7.
Conference Finals: East and West each crown a conference champion. Best of 7.
NBA Finals: Eastern Conference champion vs Western Conference champion. Best of 7.
Series follow a 2-2-1-1-1 home format: the higher seed hosts Games 1, 2, 5, and 7; the lower seed hosts Games 3, 4, and 6. There’s no reseeding between rounds—the bracket is set when the playoffs begin, so a 4-seed that upsets a 1 takes the 1’s bracket spot the rest of the way.
Best-of-7 rewards depth and coaching adjustments. A single hot shooting night isn’t enough; you need to win four games in two weeks, usually with the other team adjusting their defense in between. The format is considered the fairest in American pro sports—and the reason the NBA rarely gets a Cinderella champion.
The NBA Finals
The NBA Finals is the championship round—the Eastern Conference champion vs the Western Conference champion, best of 7. Games typically start in early June and wrap by mid-June. The team that wins four games claims the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy, and one of its players is named Finals MVP (the Bill Russell Trophy).
The Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers share the all-time lead with 18 championships apiece. The Golden State Warriors (2015–2022 dynasty) and the Oklahoma City Thunder (2025) are the most recent multi-title franchises.