We followed every team from its first regular-season game to the end of its season, 892 team-seasons from 1996-97 to 2025-26 in NBA.com's official team game logs. Making the playoffs includes getting in through the play-in, and wins are counted on an 82-game basis for the four shortened seasons.
Does the first game of the NBA season matter?
As a sign of how good a team is, yes. The 446 teams that won their opener made the playoffs 290 times, 65 percent, and the 446 that lost it 190 times, 43 percent. Opener winners went on to win 53.7 percent of their remaining games and opener losers 46.3 percent, a gap of about six wins over the other 81 games.
| Season opener | Teams | Made playoffs | Avg. wins | Rest of season | Titles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Won | 446 | 290 (65%) | 44.5 | .537 | 22 |
| Lost | 446 | 190 (43%) | 37.5 | .463 | 8 |
| Won by 15 or more | 112 | 84 (75%) | 47.2 | .570 | 8 |
| Won by 1 to 14 | 334 | 206 (62%) | 43.6 | .525 | 14 |
| Lost by 1 to 14 | 341 | 155 (45%) | 38.6 | .477 | 6 |
| Lost by 15 or more | 105 | 35 (33%) | 33.9 | .419 | 2 |
The margin adds a little. Teams that won their opener by 15 points or more made the playoffs 75 percent of the time, and teams that lost by 15 or more 33 percent. Twenty-two of the 30 champions won their opener, eight of them by 15 or more.
How much the NBA season opener predicts
Less than those gaps suggest, because the teams that win openers tend to be the teams that were already better. Measured as a share of the differences between teams over the rest of the season, a statistic called R², the opener's result accounts for 5.7 percent and its margin for 7.9 percent. Last season's record accounts for 37.5 percent.
Adding the opener to last season's record barely helps: the share rises from 37.5 to 38.7 percent. Among teams with the same record the season before, opener winners finished about three wins better over the remaining 81 games, half the raw gap.
The result still separates teams that started from the same place. Of the previous season's playoff teams, 78 percent of those that won their opener made it back, against 68 percent of those that lost it; of the teams that had missed, 42 percent of opener winners got in, against 22 percent of opener losers.
NBA home openers and road openers
Home teams won 237 of the 389 games in which both teams were playing their first game, 60.9 percent. That is close to the 58.7 percent home teams won across all regular-season games in the same 30 seasons, as our study of NBA home-court advantage found.
Where a team won its opener mattered little: 64 percent of road winners made the playoffs, 106 of 165, and 66 percent of home winners, 183 of 279. Losing at home was the worst sign: 39 percent of those teams got in, 73 of 186, against 45 percent after a road loss, 116 of 258.
NBA opening night: the league's first night
Opening night used to involve almost every team: from 1996-97 to 2001-02 it had 12 to 14 games. Since 2002-03 it has had two to five, exactly two from 2017-18 to 2025-26, and the teams in those games are not a random draw.
Since 2002-03, 105 of the 132 teams that played on opening night had made the playoffs the season before, 80 percent, against 47 percent of the teams that opened later. Losing that night has meant little for them: 45 of the 66 losers still made the playoffs, 68 percent, more than the 65 percent of all opener winners.
Defending champions on ring night
Defending champions receive their championship rings at their first home game of the next season. Since 1996-97 the defending champion has played on the league's opening night every season, and at home every season since 2001-02, so ring night and the opener have been the same game.
Defending champions have won 23 of their 30 openers, and 23 of their 30 first home games. The last five all won, from the 2021-22 Milwaukee Bucks to the 2025-26 Oklahoma City Thunder, who beat the Houston Rockets 125-124 in double overtime. The 2026-27 Knicks broke that run, losing their opener at home to the 76ers, 106-100.
| Season | Defending champion | Opener | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | Oklahoma City Thunder | vs. Houston Rockets | W 125-124 (2OT) |
| 2024-25 | Boston Celtics | vs. New York Knicks | W 132-109 |
| 2023-24 | Denver Nuggets | vs. Los Angeles Lakers | W 119-107 |
| 2022-23 | Golden State Warriors | vs. Los Angeles Lakers | W 123-109 |
| 2021-22 | Milwaukee Bucks | vs. Brooklyn Nets | W 127-104 |
| 2020-21 | Los Angeles Lakers | vs. LA Clippers | L 109-116 |
| 2019-20 | Toronto Raptors | vs. New Orleans Pelicans | W 130-122 (OT) |
| 2018-19 | Golden State Warriors | vs. Oklahoma City Thunder | W 108-100 |
| 2017-18 | Golden State Warriors | vs. Houston Rockets | L 121-122 |
| 2016-17 | Cleveland Cavaliers | vs. New York Knicks | W 117-88 |
The worst ring night was the 2006-07 Miami Heat's, a 108-66 loss to the Chicago Bulls. The 2011-12 Dallas Mavericks lost 105-94 on Christmas Day, the first day of a season shortened by the lockout, to the Miami Heat team they had beaten in the 2011 Finals.
Losing the opener has not doomed a title defense. Two of the seven defending champions who lost it won the title again, the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls and the 2017-18 Golden State Warriors, against five of the 23 who won it. For how rare repeats have become, see how often NBA champions repeat.
NBA champions who lost their season opener
Eight of the 30 champions since 1996-97 lost their first game, and none lost its first two:
- 1997-98 Chicago Bulls: lost 92-85 at Boston, finished 62-20.
- 2003-04 Detroit Pistons: lost 89-87 at home to Indiana, finished 54-28.
- 2015-16 Cleveland Cavaliers: lost 97-95 at Chicago, finished 57-25.
- 2016-17 Golden State Warriors: lost 129-100 at home to San Antonio, finished 67-15.
- 2017-18 Golden State Warriors: lost 122-121 at home to Houston, finished 58-24.
- 2019-20 Los Angeles Lakers: lost 112-102 to the LA Clippers, finished 52-19.
- 2020-21 Milwaukee Bucks: lost 122-121 at Boston, finished 46-26.
- 2022-23 Denver Nuggets: lost 123-102 at Utah, finished 53-29.
Five of the last 10 champions are on that list. The three since, the 2023-24 Boston Celtics, the 2024-25 Thunder and the 2025-26 New York Knicks, all won their opener; the Knicks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 119-111 at home.
NBA 3-0 and 0-3 starts, and the first week
Three games say more than one. Teams that started 3-0 made the playoffs 77 percent of the time and teams that started 0-3 24 percent; the biggest step is between 2-1 and 1-2, 70 percent against 41. No team that started 0-3 won the title.
| Record after 3 games | Teams | Made playoffs | Avg. wins | Titles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3-0 | 135 | 104 (77%) | 48.7 | 10 |
| 2-1 | 308 | 215 (70%) | 45.6 | 17 |
| 1-2 | 313 | 128 (41%) | 37.0 | 3 |
| 0-3 | 136 | 33 (24%) | 31.9 | 0 |
The first three games account for 15.5 percent of the differences over the rest of the season, and the league's first seven days, in which teams played two to five games, for 17.9 percent. Against final winning percentage, early games included, the correlation is 0.28 for the opener and 0.46 for the first three games. The new record draws level with last season's only at about 10 games, as our look at the first 20 games of an NBA season found.
Last season the Chicago Bulls started 3-0 and finished 31-51, while the Celtics started 0-3, beginning with a 117-116 home loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, and finished 56-26, second in the East. Eight of the 14 teams that won their 2025-26 opener made the playoffs, and so did eight of the 16 that lost it.
NBA opening night 2026: the results
The 2026-27 regular season began on Tuesday, Oct. 20, with a tripleheader on NBC and Peacock. All times are Eastern:
- 3 p.m. ET: Detroit Pistons 121, Boston Celtics 113, the teams with the Eastern Conference's two best records in 2025-26.
- 7 p.m. ET: Philadelphia 76ers 106, New York Knicks 100, the defending champions' opener at home.
- 9:30 p.m. ET: Oklahoma City Thunder 116, San Antonio Spurs 104, a rematch of the 2026 Western Conference finals.
The other 24 teams opened on Wednesday, Oct. 21, with 11 games, or Thursday, Oct. 22, when the Cavaliers lost at the 76ers, 114-106, and the Denver Nuggets lost at the Thunder, 96-84.
Fourteen teams won their opener and 16 lost it, the same split as in 2025-26, and through Nov. 2 the winners were 65-39 and the losers 42-68, counting the opener. Eight teams started 3-0 and seven started 0-3, among them the champion Knicks (3-4 through Nov. 2) and the Golden State Warriors (5-3 after five straight wins). The NBA schedule lists every game, and the NBA simulator plays out the rest of the season from the real standings.
NBA season openers: frequently asked questions
Does the first game of the NBA season matter? A little. Since 1996-97, 65 percent of opener winners and 43 percent of opener losers made the playoffs, but the result explains only about 6 percent of what follows.
How many NBA champions lost their season opener? Eight of the 30 since 1996-97, most recently the 2022-23 Denver Nuggets. None lost its first two games.
What is the defending champion's record on ring night? 23-7 in its first home game from 1996-97 to 2025-26, with five straight wins through the 2025-26 Oklahoma City Thunder; the 2026-27 Knicks lost theirs, 106-100 to the 76ers.
Can an NBA team that starts 0-3 make the playoffs? About one in four does: 33 of 136 since 1996-97, including the 2025-26 Boston Celtics. None won the title.
When was NBA opening night in 2026? Tuesday, Oct. 20: the Pistons beat the Celtics 121-113 at 3 p.m. ET, the 76ers beat the Knicks 106-100 at 7 p.m. ET and the Thunder beat the Spurs 116-104 at 9:30 p.m. ET, all on NBC and Peacock.
How this was built: every NBA regular-season game from 1996-97 to 2025-26 in NBA.com's official team game logs, 35,546 games and 892 team-seasons, every final record matching NBA.com's standings; the canceled Indiana-Boston game of April 16, 2013, is left out. Opening night is each season's first date. Four openers played in Japan in 1999 and 2003, matched against the list of NBA Global Games, count as neutral. Playoff teams and champions come from NBA.com's playoff game logs. Shares explained are R² from linear regressions on winning percentage in the games that followed; last season's record is matched by team ID, leaving out the 2002-03 New Orleans Hornets and the 2004-05 Charlotte Bobcats. The 2026-27 schedule comes from NBA Communications, as of October 19, 2026, and its results from ESPN's scoreboard, through Nov. 2.