Spring is when basketball stops being a nightly habit and becomes appointment viewing — and also when the broadcast rights get most confusing. A first-round series can start on TNT, move to ESPN, and finish on NBA TV. NBABite ignores all of that: play-in through Finals, every game on one page, free.
How the bracket actually works
Ten teams per conference qualify. Seeds 7 to 10 fight through the play-in for the last two spots, leaving sixteen teams in a bracket of four best-of-seven rounds. Home court follows the better seed in a 2-2-1-1-1 pattern, which is why a road win in Game 1 changes a series so much. Sixteen wins takes a team the whole way.
Rounds you can follow here
- Play-in tournament — four one-off games per conference, usually the most chaotic week of the year.
- First round — eight series at once, several games most nights.
- Conference Semi-finals and Finals — the field narrows and the schedule spreads out.
- The Finals — see the NBA Finals live stream page for the closing series.
How a seven-game series is actually won
Regular-season basketball rewards depth; the postseason rewards the opposite. Rotations shrink to eight players, then seven, and the best player on the floor takes a far larger share of the possessions than he would in January. Series turn on matchup hunting — repeatedly attacking whichever defender the other team cannot hide — and on whether a coach adjusts before losing two in a row rather than after.
Why the regular season decides where games are played
Seeding sets home court for every round, and the format gives the better seed Games 1, 2, 5 and 7. That is the entire practical payoff for eighty-two games of effort, and it is why teams already assured of a playoff place still fight over a single seed in the final week — the difference between hosting a deciding game and travelling for one.
How long the postseason runs
From the play-in in April to a Finals that can reach late June, the bracket occupies more than two months. Series alternate between one and two rest days, so a round rarely runs on a fixed weekly rhythm — the schedule is announced series by series, which is why the board above is worth checking rather than assuming a pattern.
Following one team through the bracket
If you only care about a single club, its own page carries every game it plays, postseason included — reach it from the logo strip on the home page. Otherwise the schedule above lists whatever is on tonight, with a countdown to each tip-off and several checked links per game.