Schedule for the 2022-23 NBA season announced! This is what you need to know.
Today, the NBA released the complete list of games and times when they will air on TNT, ESPN, ABC, NBA TV and ESPN Radio during the 2022-23 regular season. You can also find the schedules for each team at nba.com/schedule.
The 77th NBA regular season will begin on Tuesday, October 18, 2022, and end on Sunday, April 9, 2023. Each team will play 82 games during the season. From Tuesday, April 11 to Friday, April 14, 2023, the NBA Play-In Tournament will take place. The 2023 NBA Playoffs presented by Google Pixel will kick off on Saturday, April 15.
The first game of the 2023 NBA Finals, which will be broadcast on YouTube, will be on Thursday, June 1.
Kia NBA 2022 Season Kickoff
As part of Kia NBA Tip-Off 2022, the first four days of the 2022-23 NBA season (October 18-21) will see eight games broadcast on national television. Additionally, TNT and ESPN will each show two doubleheaders. There will be 12 different teams in these games, three rematches from the 2022 NBA Playoffs, and rosters featuring 15 NBA All-Stars and 7 Kia NBA MVP Award winners from last season.
The regular season will kick off on Tuesday, October 18 with a doubleheader on TNT. This is the 39th year in a row that Turner Sports has covered the NBA. In the first game, the Philadelphia 76ers will visit the Boston Celtics, defending Eastern Conference champions (7:30 p.m. ET). In Game 2, the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors will earn their championship rings and then play the Los Angeles Lakers (10 p.m. ET).
ESPN will kick off its 21st straight year of NBA coverage on Oct. 19 with a doubleheader. The Memphis Grizzlies will play the New York Knicks in Game 1 (7:30 PM ET). The Dallas Mavericks will then travel to Phoenix to play a rematch of a 2022 Western Conference Semifinals series (10 p.m. ET).
On Thursday, October 20, TNT will show its second opening week doubleheader. The 76ers will play the Milwaukee Bucks at 7:30 p.m. ET, and the Lakers will play the LA Clippers (10 p.m. ET). Then, on Friday, October 21, the Celtics will travel to Miami to play the Heat at 7:30 p.m. ET, and the Denver Nuggets will play the Warriors in San Francisco at 10 p.m. ET Both games are rematches of the 2022 Eastern Conference Finals and the 2022 Western Conference First Round.
NBA TV will begin broadcasting live games for the 2022-23 season on Saturday, October 22. The San Antonio Spurs will play the Philadelphia 76ers at 6 p.m. ET, and the Dallas Mavericks will host the Memphis Grizzlies (8:30 p.m. ET). On Sunday, October 23, when the Suns play the Clippers on NBA TV, the first week of the season will end on national television (10 PM ET).
Christmas day
For the fifteenth consecutive year, five matches will be played on Christmas Day (Sunday 25 December). Each game will air on ESPN or ABC. The Knicks will play the 76ers on Christmas Day in the 75th NBA game. The game will air on ESPN (noon ET).
Both ESPN and ABC will air the next three upcoming games. The Lakers will visit the Mavericks at 2:30 p.m. ET, the Celtics will host the Bucks at 5 p.m. ET in a rematch of the 2022 Eastern Conference Semifinals, and the Grizzlies will play their first game on Christmas Day when they visit the Warriors in a rematch of the 2022 Western Conference Semifinals (8 p.m. ET). Finally, the Nuggets will play the Suns in Denver on ESPN as the final game on Christmas Day (10:30 p.m. ET).
Martin Luther King Jr Day
As part of Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, January 16, TNT will show two back-to-back thrillers. In Game 1, the Atlanta Hawks will host the Miami Heat in a rematch of a 2022 Eastern Conference First Round series (3:30 p.m. ET). In Game 2, the Suns (who had the best record in the NBA last season, 64-18) will visit the Grizzlies (who had the second-best record, 56-26), in what will be the 21st annual edition of Martin Luther King of Memphis. Jr. Day Celebration Game
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, NBA TV will broadcast two games. The Celtics will play the Charlotte Hornets (1 pm ET), and the Lakers will host the Houston Rockets (10:30 pm ET).
Election day
As Election Day approaches, the NBA and its teams will continue to tell fans to make plans to vote and participate in the political process. This season, all 30 teams will play on Monday, November 7, the day before Election Day. On that day, the NBA will help encourage people to vote, share important voting group resources and showcase the work teams are doing in their local communities to be good citizens. As part of this plan, there will be no NBA games on Tuesday, November 8, which is Election Day.
NBA Rivals Week
During the week of January 23, NBA Rivals Week will put a lot of focus on old and new rivalries between teams and players. NBA Rivals Week, a new highlight of the regular season, will feature 11 nationally televised games over five days, from Tuesday, January 24 through Saturday, January 28. These games will air on four different networks. All nine games that week on TNT, ESPN and ABC, as well as two games on NBA TV, will be about rivalries.
On January 28, the Lakers will visit the Celtics for the final game of NBA Rivals Week.
The Lakers and Celtics are the two teams that have met the most in the NBA Finals (12 times) and share the record for the most NBA titles (17). (8:30 p.m. ET). After that, Kia’s two-time reigning NBA MVP Nikola Joki will lead the Nuggets against consecutive MVP runner-up Joel Embiid and the 76ers at 3 p.m. Eastern time on ABC. This will be followed by a game between the New York Knicks and the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center (5:30 p.m. ET).
NBA Global Games
During the 2022-23 season, the NBA Global Games will return with two regular season games outside of the US and Canada. Both games will be shown on NBA TV. The Heat will play the Spurs in the NBA Mexico City Game 2022 on Saturday, December 17 at Arena CDMX in Mexico City (5 p.m. ET). The NBA Paris Game 2023 will take place on Thursday, January 19 at the Accor Arena in Paris. Additionally, the Chicago Bulls and Detroit Pistons will play each other (3 p.m. ET).
2022 NBA Finals rematches
On Saturday, December 10, the Warriors and Celtics will meet for the first time since the 2022 NBA Finals. The game will air on ABC in San Francisco (8:30 PM ET). This will be the first of seven regular season games that ABC will air on Saturday nights at 8:30 p.m. ET during Saturday NBA primetime.
On Thursday, January 19 at 8:00 p.m. ET on TNT, the two defending conference champions will meet for the second and final time during the regular season (7:30 p.m. ET).
Last day of the regular season
The last day of the season the 30 teams will play (Sunday, April 9). Seven games between Eastern Conference teams and one game between teams from different conferences (Rockets vs. Wizards) will begin at 1 p.m. ET Seven games between Western Conference teams will begin at 3:30 p.m. ET ESPN will show a doubleheader, but the teams won’t meet until later.
Travel reduction
The average number of miles each team is expected to travel during the 2022-2023 regular season has been lowered to 41,000 miles. This is an all-time low for a time when there are 30 teams and each team plays 82 games. This is a drop of about 2,000 miles per team from last season when each team traveled 43,000 miles, which was the lowest in history. NBA teams are expected to travel more than 50,000 fewer miles than last season.
Since last season, the number of visiting teams that do not have to travel between games has increased by 66%. (88 of 53). The 88 non-travel situations include 55 teams that played back-to-back road games against the same opponent and 33 teams that played back-to-back games in either Los Angeles (against the Clippers and Lakers) or New York (against the Knicks and Knicks) ( against the Knicks and the Nets).
More important dates and times
During the 2022-23 regular season, each of the 30 teams will be on TNT or ESPN at least once. During the regular season, the NBA on TNT, ESPN, ABC and NBA TV will change their schedules to show the most exciting games to a national audience.
During the regular season, TNT will show 18 doubleheaders on Tuesdays and 13 on Thursdays. All Thursday doubleheaders will take place in or after January, except for the first week of the season. ESPN will show 21 doubleheaders on Wednesday and 13 doubleheaders on Friday. Again, all primetime doubleheaders on TNT and ESPN will begin at 7:30 p.m. ET and ends at 10 p.m. ET.
On Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons, ABC will broadcast 15 regular season games (excluding Christmas Day). During the regular season, NBA TV will broadcast more than 100 games live.
ABC and ESPN/ABC will be the only channels showing the 2023 NBA Finals presented by YouTube TV and the 2023 Western Conference Finals. The 2023 Eastern Conference Finals and the 2023 NBA All-Star Game , which will be played in Salt Lake City on Sunday, February 19, will only be broadcast on TNT.
During the regular season, ESPN Radio will broadcast 25 games. On opening night, the Lakers will play the Warriors. On Christmas Day, the Bucks will play the Celtics and the Grizzlies will play the Warriors. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Heat will play the Hawks. It will also cover the NBA Finals and the NBA All-Star Game.
All season long, NBA League Pass will let you watch live games that aren’t in your area. You can do this through the NBA app, nba.com, connected TVs, and TV providers. With NBA League Pass, fans can directly access streaming games between their favorite teams and players (blackout restrictions apply). For more information, visit NBA.com/leaguepass.
As part of “NBA Saturdays and NBA Sundays presented by NBA 2K23,” 45 regular season games will be shown in prime time across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
NBA games and shows are broadcast in more than 50 languages in more than 214 countries and territories.
