Schedule for the 2022–23 NBA season released! Here’s what you need to know.
Schedule for the 2022–23 NBA season released! Here’s what you need to know. Today, the NBA released the complete list of games and times they will be shown 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 start 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, there will be the NBA Play-In Tournament. On Saturday, April 15, the 2023 NBA Playoffs presented by Google Pixel will begin. The first game of the 2023 NBA Finals, which will be shown on YouTube, will be on Thursday, June 1.
Kia NBA Season Start 2022
As part of Kia NBA Tip-Off 2022, the first four days of the 2022-23 NBA season (Oct. 18–21) will have eight games shown on national TV. In addition, 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 with 15 NBA All-Stars and 7 winners of the Kia NBA Most Valuable Player Award from last season.
The regular season will start 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, who are the current Eastern Conference champions (7:30 p.m. ET). In the second game, the Golden State Warriors, who are the current NBA champions, will get their championship rings and then play the Los Angeles Lakers (10 p.m. ET).
ESPN will start its 21st straight year of NBA coverage on October 19 with a doubleheader. The Memphis Grizzlies will play the New York Knicks in the first game (7:30 p.m. ET). Then, the Dallas Mavericks will 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 go 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 from the 2022 Eastern Conference Finals and the 2022 Western Conference First Round.
NBA TV will start showing 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 be over on national TV (10 p.m. ET).
Christmas Day
For the 15th year in a row, five games will be played on Christmas Day (Sunday, December 25). Each game will be shown on ESPN or ABC. The Knicks will play the 76ers on Christmas Day in the NBA’s 75th game. The game will be shown on ESPN (noon ET).
Both ESPN and ABC will broadcast 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 Christmas Day game 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 last game of 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 the first game, 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 the second game, 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), which will be Memphis’s 21st annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration Game.
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, NBA TV will show two games. The Celtics will play at the Charlotte Hornets (1 p.m. ET), and the Lakers will host the Houston Rockets (10:30 p.m. ET).
Election Day
As Election Day gets closer, the NBA and its teams will keep telling fans to make plans to vote and take part 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 resources from voting groups, and show off 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 attention on old and new rivalries between teams and players. NBA Rivals Week, a new highlight of the regular season, will have 11 nationally televised games over five days, from Tuesday, January 24 to Saturday, January 28. These games will be shown 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 as the last game of NBA Rivals Week. The Lakers and Celtics are the two teams that have met in the NBA Finals the most (12 times) and share the record for the most NBA titles (17). (8:30 p.m. ET). After that, two-time reigning Kia NBA Most Valuable Player Nikola Joki will lead the Nuggets against back-to-back MVP runner-up Joel Embiid and the 76ers at 3 p.m. ET 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, NBA Global Games will return with two regular-season games played outside of the U.S. and Canada. Both of these 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 the Arena CDMX in Mexico City (5 p.m. ET). The NBA Paris Game 2023 will be held on Thursday, January 19, at the Accor Arena in Paris. In addition, the Chicago Bulls and the Detroit Pistons will play each other (3 p.m. ET).
2022 NBA Finals Rematches
On Saturday, December 10, the Warriors and Celtics will play each other for the first time since the 2022 NBA Finals. The game will air on ABC in San Francisco (8:30 p.m. ET). This will be the first of seven regular-season games that ABC will show on Saturday nights at 8:30 p.m. ET during NBA Saturday Primetime.
On Thursday, January 19, at 8 p.m. ET on TNT, the two defending conference champions will play each other for the second and last time during the regular season (7:30 p.m. ET).
Final Day of Regular Season
On the last day of the season, all 30 teams will play (Sunday, April 9). Seven games between teams from the Eastern Conference and one game between teams from different conferences (Rockets vs. Wizards) will start at 1 p.m. ET. Seven games between teams from the Western Conference will start at 3:30 p.m. ET. ESPN will show a doubleheader, but the teams will not play each other until later.
Travel Reduction
The average number of miles each team is expected to travel during the regular season of 2022–2023 has been cut to 41,000 miles. This is a record 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 ever. It is expected that NBA teams will travel more than 50,000 miles less than they did last season.
Since last season, the number of road teams that don’t have to travel between games has increased by 66%. (88 from 53). The 88 no-travel situations include 55 teams that played two straight road games against the same opponent and 33 teams that played two consecutive games in either Los Angeles (against the Clippers and Lakers) or New York (against the Knicks and Knicks) (against the Knicks and 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 of the Thursday doubleheaders will take place in January or later, except for the one during 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 start at 7:30 p.m. ET and end at 10 p.m. ET.
On Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons, ABC will show 15 regular-season games (excluding Christmas Day). During the regular season, NBA TV will show more than 100 live games.
ABC and ESPN/ABC will be the only channels to show 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 shown on TNT.
During the regular season, ESPN Radio will show 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 stream games between their favorite teams and players (blackout restrictions apply). To find out more, go to NBA.com/leaguepass.
As part of “NBA Saturdays and NBA Sundays presented by NBA 2K23,” 45 games from the regular season will be shown in primetime in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA).
NBA games and shows are shown in more than 50 languages in more than 214 countries and territories.