The 2020 NBA season is scheduled to officially resume on July 30, when the 22 teams that traveled to the league’s bubble at the ESPN World of Sports in Walt Disney World, Florida will begin playing in their first of eight “seeding” games that will ultimately crystallize the 2020 NBA Playoffs picture.
The NBA’s 2019-20 Restart plan has been criticized by some— including a number of players employed by organizations getting set to return to play—for not doing enough to protect participants from potential coronavirus-related issues, but the league believes it will be able to resume the campaign on time and get through a full postseason without any major issues.
2020 NBA Season Restart – Exhibition Schedule
The new landscape will get a test run when exhibition play begins on Wednesday, with the first of 32 total scrimmages on the schedule taking place. These inter-squad matchups will run until Tuesday, July 28 and take place at three separate venues, giving organizers a chance to fine tune the process before meaningful contests resume at the end of the month.
One notable change to some of these exhibition contests is that they will utilize shortened quarters, clocking in at 10 minutes each instead of the traditional 12. Each team is slated to participate in three scrimmages, with the first of these using the abbreviated format before moving back to standard 12-minute quarters for the final two games. The league believes that shortened quarters will help players ease back into full speed contests after going over four months without them due to the NBA shutdown.
Here’s the full exhibition schedule for all 22 teams ahead of the 2020 NBA season restart:
Wednesday, July 22
- Orlando vs. L.A. Clippers, 3 p.m.
- Washington vs. Denver, 3:30.m.
- New Orleans vs. Brooklyn, 7 p.m.
- Sacramento vs. Miami, 8 p.m.
Thursday, July 23
- San Antonio vs. Milwaukee, 3 p.m.
- Portland vs. Indiana, 3:30 p.m.
- Dallas vs. L.A. Lakers, 7 p.m.
- Phoenix vs. Utah, 8 p.m.
Friday, July 24
- Memphis vs. Philadelphia, 3:30 p.m.
- Oklahoma City vs. Boston, 5 p.m.
- Houston vs. Toronto, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, July 25
- L.A. Lakers vs. Orlando, noon
- Milwaukee vs. Sacramento, 12:30 p.m.
- Miami vs. Utah, 4 p.m.
- Brooklyn vs. San Antonio, 4:30 p.m.
- L.A. Clippers vs. Washington, 8 p.m.
- Denver vs. New Orleans, 8:30 p.m.
Sunday, July 26
- Philadelphia vs. Oklahoma City, noon.
- Phoenix vs. Boston, 1:30 p.m.
- Indiana vs. Dallas, 4 p.m.
- Portland vs. Toronto, 6 p.m.
- Houston vs. Memphis, 8 p.m.
Monday, July 27
- Washington vs. L.A. Lakers, 3 p.m.
- Sacramento vs. L.A. Clippers, 4 p.m.
- Utah vs. Brooklyn, 5:30 p.m.
- Orlando vs. Denver, 7 p.m.
- New Orleans vs. Milwaukee, 8 p.m.
Tuesday, July 28
- Memphis vs. Miami, 2 p.m.
- Toronto vs. Phoenix, 3 p.m.
- San Antonio vs. Indiana, 4 p.m.
- Oklahoma City vs. Portland, 6 p.m.
- Boston vs. Houston, 8 p.m.
- Dallas vs. Philadelphia, 8:30 p.m.
Key Dates For 2020 NBA Return To Play Plan
Once exhibition play is finished, teams will have just a couple days before the seeding games begin. Each squad will participate in a total of eight contests that will finalize the 2020 NBA Playoff bracket, with a chance of a small play-in tournament to determine the No. 8 seed in each conference. This will only be triggered if the team with the eighth-best record finishes within four games of the No. 9 team. If that scenario occurs, those two clubs will compete in a best-of-two battle in which the No. 8 team would need to win just once to earn the final spot on the bracket in its conference, while the No. 9 team would have a chance to usurp by winning both matchups.
Here is a look at when the seeding games will take place, when the play-in tournaments would occur if triggered, the 2020 NBA Playoff dates and more:
- July 30-Aug. 14 — 2019-20 season resumes with seeding games
- Aug. 15-16 — Play-in tournaments take place
- Aug. 17 — Playoffs begin
- Aug. 25 — NBA Draft Lottery
- Aug. 31-Sept. 13 — Conference semifinals
- Sept. 15-Sept. 28 —Conference Finals
- Sept. 30 — NBA Finals begin
- Oct. 13 — Last possible date for Game 7 of NBA Finals
- Oct. 16 — 2020 NBA draft
- Oct. 18 — Free agency begins at 6 p.m. ET
- Dec. 1 — Opening night for 2020-21 season
