The 2026-27 NBA season has the same shape as the last few: an 82-game regular season with an in-season tournament folded into it, a short play-in, and four rounds of best-of-seven playoffs. Here are the dates that matter and how each part works, with the season dates taken from the league's own schedule data.
Key dates
| Stage | Dates |
|---|---|
| Preseason | September 30 to mid-October 2026 |
| Opening night | Tuesday, October 20, 2026 |
| NBA Cup group games | November 2026, on set tournament nights |
| NBA Cup knockout rounds and final | December 2026, final in Las Vegas |
| Last day of the regular season | Around April 11, 2027 |
| Play-in tournament | The week of April 12, 2027 |
| Playoffs begin | Around April 17, 2027 |
| Finals end | By late June 2027 |
Opening night has three games: Boston at Detroit, Philadelphia at New York, and Oklahoma City at San Antonio.
The regular season
All 30 teams play 82 games, 41 at home and 41 away. A team plays the other teams in its division four times each, and the rest of the schedule is spread across its own conference and the other one. There are 15 teams in each conference and three divisions of five in each.
A typical team plays three or four games a week, with a few back-to-back nights. Teams often rest players on the second night of a back-to-back, so if you are watching for a particular star it is worth checking the injury report on the day. The All-Star break in February is the only long pause.
How the NBA Cup works
The NBA Cup was introduced in the 2023-24 season and runs inside the regular season. For group play, the teams in each conference are drawn into three groups of five. Every team plays the other four teams in its group once, on set tournament nights in November, and those games count in the regular-season standings like any other game.
Eight teams go through to the knockout rounds: the six group winners and one wild card from each conference, the best of the second-placed teams. Quarterfinals are played at the home of the higher seed in early December. The semifinals and the final are held in Las Vegas.
The quarterfinals and semifinals count toward each team's 82 games. The final is the one exception: it does not count in the standings, so the two finalists finish the season with 83 games played. To keep everyone at 82, the teams knocked out earlier get extra regular-season games added to their schedules in December.
The play-in tournament
At the end of the regular season, seeds 1 to 6 in each conference go straight to the playoffs. The teams that finish 7th to 10th play for the last two places:
- The 7th seed hosts the 8th. The winner is the 7th seed in the playoffs.
- The 9th seed hosts the 10th. The loser's season is over.
- The loser of the 7-8 game hosts the winner of the 9-10 game. The winner of that game is the 8th seed.
So the 7th and 8th seeds get two chances to qualify, and the 9th and 10th need to win twice.
The playoffs
Sixteen teams, eight per conference, play four rounds: first round, conference semifinals, conference finals and the Finals. Every round is best of seven. The team with the better seed is at home for games 1, 2, 5 and 7 in the early rounds, using a 2-2-1-1-1 pattern. The Finals use the same 2-2-1-1-1 pattern, with home court going to the team with the better regular-season record.
Because series can end in four games or go to seven, the exact playoff schedule is set a round at a time. Game times are often confirmed only a day or two before.
When the games are on
Most regular-season games start in the evening in the United States. On a busy weeknight the first games tip in the 7 o'clock hour Eastern and the West Coast games about three hours later. In UTC, before the US clock change on November 1, that is around 23:00 to 00:30 for the early group and 02:00 onwards for the late group, and one hour later in UTC after November 1. Weekend afternoon games and the Christmas Day slate start earlier.
The NBA page on Methstreams shows every listed game for the next seven days and converts each start time to your own clock. Preseason, NBA Cup nights and the playoffs all appear on that same page.
