The new NBA schedule includes a rare ABC tripleheaader in what will be the network’s shortest season yet.
ABC is scheduled to carry 18 NBA games in the 2022-23 season, on par with past years, but none of those games will air in the final month of the season. The network’s 18-game schedule is compressed into a three-month period between December 10 and March 11, marking the earliest NBA season finale on broadcast television since at least the 1970s.
The flip side is that there will be more NBA games on broadcast television between Christmas and NCAA Selection Sunday (March 12) than at any point in the past two decades. That includes a rare tripleheader on Saturday, January 28 (Nuggets-Sixers at 3 PM ET, Knicks-Nets at 5:30 and Lakers-Celtics at 8:30) — the first broadcast network NBA tripleheader outside of Christmas Day since NBC last held rights in 2002.
Including the network’s now-traditional Christmas Day tripleheader — Lakers-Mavericks at 2:30, Bucks-Celtics at 5:00 and Grizzlies-Warriors at 8:00, all simulcast on ESPN — this season will be the first since ’02 with multiple tripleheaders on broadcast.
There are two additional weekends when ABC has three games across Saturday and Sunday — February 25-26 (Celtics-Sixers on Saturday, Suns-Bucks and Lakers-Mavericks on Sunday) and March 4-5 (Sixers-Bucks on Saturday, Suns-Mavericks and Warriors-Lakers on Sunday). Notably, those are the only two weekends in which ABC will carry a Sunday doubleheader, down from four such weeks last year.
Not counting Christmas, ABC’s Sunday schedule this season includes just five games — the fewest Sunday games for an over-the-air NBA package since at least the ’70s.
The full 2022-23 NBA TV schedule is available on the following page.
(Schedule information from the NBA, ESPN)
