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Tim BontempsESPN
The NBA released its schedule for the second half of the regular season live on ESPN’s The Jump on Wednesday afternoon, explaining how it plans to have all 30 teams playing 72 games despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The NBA revealed only its first half calendar in early December, allowing flexibility to adjust as the pandemic inevitably wreaked havoc on its attempts to play outside the safe limits of a bubble like the one the league ended last season in. to make things as fair as possible, each team was scheduled to play 37 or 38 games over the 73 days that the first half schedule was set to happen.
Due to the pandemic, however, and the continuing problems it has caused for some teams, there is no such equity in the second half calendar. It is no accident, for example, that the four teams that played the first night back – the Washington Wizards, who will be in Memphis to face the Grizzlies, and the San Antonio Spurs, who will travel to Dallas to face the Mavericks – all went significantly impacted by COVID-19 in the first half of the season.
Spurs and Grizzlies have more games to play, with each having to pile up 40 games on a 68-day stretch of the calendar. At the other end of the spectrum are the LA Clippers, which will only have 34 games in a 67-day period.
While the NBA’s goal is to get all teams to play its 72 scheduled games, sources said the league is aware of the fact that all 30 teams may not be able to reach that number. There is limited flexibility in the schedule for adding games or dates to the calendar, as the NBA wants the playoffs to be completed in time before the scheduled start of the Olympic Games in late July.
As a result, the second half schedule will conclude on Sunday, May 16, with a play-in tournament from May 18 to May 21, which will feature teams that finish seventh to 10th in the East and West conferences playing for both playoff end points on each side of the bracket.
In the first games of the tournament, the seventh seed will receive the eighth seed in each conference, with the winner of each game receiving a playoff spot. The losers of those first games will receive the ninth or tenth seed in their respective conferences – depending on which of the lowest seeders wins the games played between these two teams – for the second playoff spot.
The NBA playoffs will begin on Saturday, May 22.
There will be five ABC games over the second half of the calendar, all with striking clashes between the best teams in the league. These are:
* The Clippers hosting their Staples Center co-renters, the Los Angeles Lakers, on April 4.
* The Lakers travel to Brooklyn to face the Nets on April 10.
* Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors travel to Boston to play against the Celtics on April 17th.
* The Lakers face Luka Doncic and the Mavericks in Dallas on April 24.
* And the Nets go to Milwaukee to face Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks on May 2nd.
As in the first half schedule, the NBA returned to using the baseball style schedule in the second half, with teams playing two games in one city against the same opponent, in order to minimize travel when possible. An important example of this is the league leader, Utah Jazz, playing in Los Angeles against the Lakers on Saturday, April 17, and on Monday, April 19, with both games being on ESPN.
After the opening night of two games with Wizards-Grizzlies and Spurs-Mavericks – the latter on NBA TV – TNT opens the second half of the season on Thursday, March 11, with the Celtics playing the Nets in Brooklyn and the Clippers hosting the warriors.
ESPN’s opening broadcast of the second half shows the Clippers traveling to New Orleans to face newly formed All-Star Zion Williamson and the Pelicans on Sunday, March 14 – followed by the astonishing New York Knicks heading to Brooklyn and playing on the Nets and the Lakers traveling to San Francisco to play against the Warriors the following night.