We checked the formula against every regular-season pairing since 2004-05, when the league went from 29 teams in four divisions to 30 in six, using NBA.com's official game logs, 26,499 games, and against the 2026-27 schedule. In every full season it held exactly, until the NBA Cup arrived in 2023-24.
How many times NBA teams play each other: the 82-game formula
- Division rivals: four games against each of the other four teams in the division, two at home and two away, 16 in all.
- The rest of the conference: 36 games against the 10 teams in the conference's other two divisions, six of them four times and four of them three times, with one team hosting twice in a three-game set.
- The other conference: two games against each of the 15 teams, one at home and one away, 30 in all.
That makes 82 games, 41 at home and 41 away, the formula Wikipedia gives for the NBA schedule, and the games bear it out. In each of the 16 full 82-game seasons from 2004-05 to 2022-23, all 60 division pairings met four times, 90 conference pairings four times and 60 three times, all 225 cross-conference pairings twice, and every team played 41 home games. Only the shortened seasons differed: in the 72 games of 2020-21, every conference rival was played three times.
How NBA Cup games fit into the 82-game schedule
The NBA Cup did not add to the 82. Its group games are regular-season games: each team plays the four others in its group once, two at home and two away, and the results count in the standings. On the 2026-27 schedule all 60 group games, on Cup Nights from October 30 to November 27, are among the pairs' usual meetings, 14 of them between division rivals.
It changed the calendar instead. The 2026-27 schedule dates 80 of each team's 82 games and leaves two to be played from December 4 to 10, after group play. Quarterfinals on December 4 and 5 and semifinals on December 8 or 9, now at the higher seed's arena, count in the standings; the final, on December 11 at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, does not.
On the 80 dated games, each team plays four of its 10 other conference rivals four times and six of them three times: 16 + 16 + 18 + 30. The rules set for the first Cup in 2023 fill the last two slots:
- The 22 teams that miss the knockout rounds get one more home game and one more road game. Twenty of those 22 games stay within a conference, between teams otherwise scheduled to meet three times wherever possible, which gives most of them the classic split of six four-game and four three-game rivals.
- Two games cross conferences, because each conference has 11 teams left out; no team plays more than one.
- The four quarterfinal losers play each other within their conference. Semifinalists reach 82 with their two knockout games.
By our count, all 72 added games of the first three Cups followed those rules. The 2026 groups and each team's odds are in our NBA Cup preview.
Why some NBA teams now play each other five times
Knockout games are regular-season games between teams whose schedules were set in August, so they can add a meeting the formula never planned. From 2004-05 to 2022-23, no two teams met more than four times in a regular season; in the three seasons since, a pair has met five times on 16 occasions.
| Season | Pairs that met 5 times | Cross-conference pairs that met 3 times | Teams on the classic formula |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004-05 to 2022-23 (16 full seasons) | 0 | 0 | 30 every season |
| 2023-24 | 7 | 2 | 18 |
| 2024-25 | 4 | 2 | 20 |
| 2025-26 | 5 | 2 | 18 |
Last season shows how. The Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Phoenix Suns in the quarterfinals and lost to the San Antonio Spurs in the semifinals, and both were already on their schedule four times, so the Thunder played each of them five times. The New York Knicks and the Toronto Raptors, and the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic, met in quarterfinals on top of four division games, and the Los Angeles Lakers and the Suns met a fifth time in the quarterfinal losers' game.
The 12 teams that finished 2025-26 off the classic split were the eight quarterfinalists and the four that played a cross-conference added game: the Brooklyn Nets, Dallas Mavericks, Chicago Bulls and New Orleans Pelicans. The other 18 ended with the formula exactly.
Which conference rivals get four games: the NBA schedule rotation
The formula fixes how many conference rivals get a fourth game, not which. In the full seasons from 2004-05 to 2022-23, every team played exactly two teams from each of the other two divisions in its conference three times, and the sets rotated: in 12 of the 13 changes from one full season to the next, no three-game pair repeated. From 2008-09 to 2009-10, 5 of the 60 did.
Wikipedia describes a five-season cycle of 18 games per conference pair, four in three seasons and three in two. That held exactly in three of the six stretches of five straight full seasons we could check, 2004-05 to 2008-09, 2006-07 to 2010-11 and 2012-13 to 2016-17; in the others some pairs got 17 games and some 19.
The rotation goes on in the Cup era. All 60 pairs with four dated games in 2023-24 had met three times in 2022-23, and only four of the 60 four-game pairs of 2026-27 had four dated games in 2025-26. These are the 2026-27 sets:
| Team | Division | Four dated games against |
|---|---|---|
| Boston Celtics | Atlantic | Bulls, Hornets, Magic, Wizards |
| Brooklyn Nets | Atlantic | Cavaliers, Heat, Hornets, Pacers |
| New York Knicks | Atlantic | Bucks, Cavaliers, Hawks, Pistons |
| Philadelphia 76ers | Atlantic | Bulls, Heat, Hornets, Pacers |
| Toronto Raptors | Atlantic | Cavaliers, Magic, Pistons, Wizards |
| Chicago Bulls | Central | 76ers, Celtics, Hawks, Wizards |
| Cleveland Cavaliers | Central | Hawks, Knicks, Nets, Raptors |
| Detroit Pistons | Central | Heat, Hornets, Knicks, Raptors |
| Indiana Pacers | Central | 76ers, Hawks, Magic, Nets |
| Milwaukee Bucks | Central | Heat, Knicks, Magic, Wizards |
| Atlanta Hawks | Southeast | Bulls, Cavaliers, Knicks, Pacers |
| Charlotte Hornets | Southeast | 76ers, Celtics, Nets, Pistons |
| Miami Heat | Southeast | 76ers, Bucks, Nets, Pistons |
| Orlando Magic | Southeast | Bucks, Celtics, Pacers, Raptors |
| Washington Wizards | Southeast | Bucks, Bulls, Celtics, Raptors |
| Denver Nuggets | Northwest | Clippers, Lakers, Pelicans, Suns |
| Minnesota Timberwolves | Northwest | Lakers, Rockets, Spurs, Suns |
| Oklahoma City Thunder | Northwest | Grizzlies, Kings, Mavericks, Pelicans |
| Portland Trail Blazers | Northwest | Lakers, Mavericks, Spurs, Warriors |
| Utah Jazz | Northwest | Clippers, Pelicans, Rockets, Suns |
| Golden State Warriors | Pacific | Grizzlies, Mavericks, Rockets, Trail Blazers |
| LA Clippers | Pacific | Grizzlies, Jazz, Nuggets, Spurs |
| Los Angeles Lakers | Pacific | Nuggets, Rockets, Timberwolves, Trail Blazers |
| Phoenix Suns | Pacific | Grizzlies, Jazz, Nuggets, Timberwolves |
| Sacramento Kings | Pacific | Mavericks, Pelicans, Spurs, Thunder |
| Dallas Mavericks | Southwest | Kings, Thunder, Trail Blazers, Warriors |
| Houston Rockets | Southwest | Jazz, Lakers, Timberwolves, Warriors |
| Memphis Grizzlies | Southwest | Clippers, Suns, Thunder, Warriors |
| New Orleans Pelicans | Southwest | Jazz, Kings, Nuggets, Thunder |
| San Antonio Spurs | Southwest | Clippers, Kings, Timberwolves, Trail Blazers |
The 2026-27 NBA schedule by the numbers
The 2026-27 regular season, the NBA's 81st, opened on Tuesday, October 20, with the Boston Celtics at the Detroit Pistons, the Philadelphia 76ers at the defending champion Knicks and the Thunder at the Spurs, and ends on Sunday, April 11, 2027, with all 30 teams in action. Through Nov. 2, 107 of the 1,200 dated games had been played, and these counts use all 80 dated games per team.
- 156 game days. No games on Election Day (November 3), Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, the All-Star break from February 19 to 24 or April 10; December 4 to 11 is left for the Cup knockouts and the added games.
- Back-to-backs: 426, or 14.2 per team, from 13 to 16, with no four games in five nights, as in our study of NBA back-to-backs.
- Longest road trips: seven games, for the Lakers (January 28 to February 8) and the Pelicans (January 30 to February 10); 11 other teams have a six-game trip.
- Longest homestands: eight games, for the Minnesota Timberwolves (November 8 to 23) and the Memphis Grizzlies (February 3 to 18).
- Christmas Day: five games on ABC and ESPN, from Spurs at Knicks at noon ET to Denver Nuggets at Golden State Warriors at 10:30 p.m. ET.
- National TV: 237 games on ABC, ESPN, NBC, Peacock or Prime Video; the Knicks, 76ers, Lakers and Spurs have 34 each, and five teams have two.
Every game is on the 2026-27 NBA schedule, the NBA simulator plays the season out, and our East vs. West study looks at the 30 games each team plays across conferences.
How many times NBA teams play each other: frequently asked questions
How many times do NBA teams play teams in their division? Four times, two at home and two away. A fifth meeting is possible when division rivals meet in the NBA Cup knockout rounds, as the Knicks and the Raptors did in 2025-26.
How many times do NBA teams play teams from the other conference? Twice, once at home and once away, except for the two cross-conference games added each December since the Cup began, which give two pairs a third meeting.
Do NBA Cup games count in the standings? Yes, all except the final: the four group games and any quarterfinal or semifinal are part of the 82.
How many games are in an NBA season? Each team plays 82, the league 1,230. The 2026-27 schedule has 1,200 dated; the other 30 are Cup quarterfinals and semifinals and the games added in December.
How this was built: every regular-season game from 2004-05 to 2025-26 in NBA.com's official team game logs, 26,499 games, with conferences and divisions from NBA.com's final standings, and the official 2026-27 schedule as retrieved on September 29, 2026, with 1,200 games set. For 2023-24 to 2025-26, setting aside the December quarterfinals, semifinals and added games leaves each 80-game schedule; Cup finals do not count. Indiana at Boston on April 16, 2013, was canceled and counts as scheduled. Streaks are games in a row away from or at a team's own arena, neutral sites counting as road games. Cup rules from pr.nba.com.