When Is The First NBA Game? New Season About To Start With Different Format

Basketball’s return is on the horizon as the NBA prepares to end a four-plus month-long hiatus. The league plans to resume the 2019-2020 season after a 142-day break.

The NBA season was suspended indefinitely on March 11 when Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. The league is targeting July 31 as the date when regular-season games will resume.

Even though basketball is coming back, the sport will look much different than it did before the coronavirus pandemic.

If NBA teams arrive at the Disney site in early July, the two teams that reach the Finals would be on location until early October -- almost three months. Long time to be in one place.
— Jeff Zillgitt (@JeffZillgitt) June 3, 2020

The remainder of the season will be played entirely at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida. Only the teams with the 22-best records will resume playing. Each team will have an eight-game regular-season schedule before the playoffs.

The traditional 16-team postseason format with the top-eight seeds in each conference will stay the same. There could be a short play-in tournament, depending on the final standings. If the No.8 seed and No.9 seed in a conference are separated by fewer than four games, they’ll face off for the right to earn the final postseason berth.

The No.8 seed only needs to defeat the No.9 seed once in order to make the playoffs. The No.9 seed needs two wins over the No.8 seed.

The New Orleans Pelicans, Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs and Phoenix Suns have a chance to play their way into the West playoff picture. The Memphis Grizzlies have a 3.5-game lead as the No.8 seed.

The play-in format requires a double-elimination format for the 8th seed, a single-elimination for the 9th seed, per sources.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 3, 2020