After the coronavirus shut down the NBA season along with everything else, basketball finally returned on Thursday at the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex,…
After the coronavirus shut down the NBA season along with everything else, basketball finally returned on Thursday at the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex, inside Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Negotiations between the league and the NBA Players Association resulted in a new deal that will allow play to resume after a hiatus of nearly five months, but the final pro basketball games of 2020 will be unlike any previous year.
The best 22 of the league’s 30 teams will play eight games to finish the regular season. From these, the top seven teams in each conference will advance, with the final eighth seed in each conference being determined by a potential play-in tournament before the traditional 16-team playoffs.
Even though the Walt Disney World theme park itself is open, social distancing requirements means that fans will not be in attendance for any of the NBA games. But the players themselves are already there and learning all the strange new rules required for life in the bubble.
The seeding games continued with some thrilling contests on Friday. James Harden exploded for 49 points to lead the Rockets over Kristaps Porzingis (who had 39 himself) and the Mavericks in overtime, while another overtime game resulted in the Blazers edging the Grizzlies. Today three teams that played on night one return for a packed slate, including the Pelicans and Zion Williamson against the star-studded Clippers at 6:00 p.m. ET (3:00 p.m. PT), then LeBron James and the Lakers meeting a Toronto team playing its first game of the restart at 8:30 p.m. ET (5:50 p.m. PT).
With the basketball finally underway here’s everything we know so far about the NBA’s eagerly awaited return and how you can watch all the action.
The NBA resumed its regular season on July 30 and will end on Aug. 14, with any play-in games taking place, if necessary, on Aug. 15 and 16.
Each of the invited teams will play eight regular-season games to both figure out seeding and get ready for the playoffs. The exact schedule for each of the teams can be found on NBA.com, although games — at least for most of the final weeks of the regular season — will generally be played throughout the day.
The playoffs will begin on Aug. 17. Game 7 of the NBA Finals will take place, if necessary, no later than Oct. 13.
There’s four games today on ESPN and one that won’t be nationally televised. Here’s what on tap for Saturday, August 1:
As in a regular non-COVID season, you can expect Disney-owned ABC and ESPN to broadcast games, with ABC broadcasting the NBA Finals.
