NBA Game Length: How long is an NBA game in minutes?
NBA game played between Pelicans and Grizzlies.AP
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Basketball is one of the most exciting sports, but also one of the longest, especially the exciting NBA games, although it is a little difficult to say the exact duration of a game, which is easier to define if we refer to its time in minutes.
First, it is important to clarify that the length of an NBA game is not the same as the length of games in competitions regulated by the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
How long do basketball games last?
Games in WNBA competitions are played over two 20-minute halves, for a total playing time of forty minutes.
FIBA games are played over four quarters lasting 10 minutes each for a total of 40 minutes, with five minutes of overtime (if needed).
NCAA men's games are forty minutes long divided into two 20-minute halves, while women's games are four 10-minute quarters.
How long are NBA games in minutes?
Each basketball game regulated by the NBA is played in four quarters of 12 minutes each, for a total of 48 minutes.
However, to that time must be added the halftime that lasts 15 minutes, as well as the constant pauses during the game due to fouls, injuries and free throws.
We cannot forget the timeouts that each team has, up to seven timeouts per game, four of them mandatory, having to take a full timeout per quarter and not being able to use more than three timeouts in the last quarter.
NBA timeouts have been 75 seconds in length since the 2017-18 season, changing the format of short and long timeouts previously implemented.
In short, an NBA game has an average duration of 2.5 hours, although in some cases, mainly due to playing overtime, they reach a duration of up to three hours.
Just as a curious fact, the longest NBA game took place on January 6, 1951 between the Indianapolis Olympians and the Rochester Royals at the Edgerton Park Arena in Rochester, New York.
The playing time was 78 minutes and the Olympians won the game 75-73, including six overtimes to be included in the Guinness World Records.
How Long Are NBA Games on Average in 2021/22?
An NBA game lasts for 48 minutes divided into 4 quarters. But of course that doesn’t tell us a lot about how much time it actually takes to play these 48 minutes of net play time.
I found a way to export the game data from nba.com starting from the 2015/16 season and took a closer look at actual average NBA game length. These are the results:
Average NBA Game Length
Chart 1: Average Game Length from 2015/16 – 2021/22
The average NBA game in the 2021/22 season lasted 2h 13min.
To calculate this data, we looked at regular season games that didn’t go to overtime. You can see in the graph that average game length has not changed much from season to season since 2016/17 varying between 2h 12min and 2h 14 min.
Did the rule changes in 2021 make NBA games shorter?
Before the 2021/22 season the NBA introduced rule changes specifically designed to speed up the end of games. Teams are limited to two timeouts in the final three minutes of a game and automatic reviews on all out-of-bounds plays in the final two minutes were eliminated.
From the data we can see that these changes had no significant impact on game length. The average duration of an NBA game actually increased by 1 minute!
To dig a little further I took a look at close games that were decided by a margin of less than 5 points.
Games decided by 5 points or less during the 2021/22 season were on average 137.9 minutes long compared to 137.3 during the previous five seasons.
So even close games are not significantly shorter on average because of the new rule changes.
Chart 2: Distribution of Length of NBA Games
# of games with specific duration
1h59m2h24m2h49m3h29mSeason090180270360# of games
This bar chart shows game duration (including OT games) of regular season games from 2016 to 2022.
We can see that the most common game length is 2h 12min. Almost 60% of all games take between 2h 5min and 2h 20min.
Close NBA Games Are Longer
Chart 3: Average Duration of NBA Games by Final Score Difference
Average Length of Game
0-55-1010-1515-2020-2525-3030-3535-40Difference Final Score2h0m2h5m2h20m2h25m2h30mGame Duration
Difference Final Score
Average Length
0-5 points
2h28m
5-10 points
2h25m
10-15 points
2h22m
15-20 points
2h20m
20-25 points
2h9m
25-30 points
2h9m
30-35 points
2h8m
35-40 points
2h6m
We can see from the chart that there is a clear correlation between how close a game is and how long it is.
Games that are decided by 5 points or less are on average 2h 18min long, while blowouts decided by 30 points or more are more than 10 minutes shorter.
There are at least two reasons for that:
In close games coaches will make sure to take all timeouts to draw up plays or make situational substitutions
Intentional fouling at the end of close games draws out the length of games
Nationally Televised NBA Games Are Longer
Chart 4: Average Duration of Nationally Televised Games vs Local Games
The average playoff NBA game (without OT games) is around 2h 25min long. That’s around 12 minutes longer than an average regular season game.
The added length is due to longer timeouts for added commercials and due to the fact that games are generally closer and therefore take longer because of more timeouts and intentional fouling.
Overtime Adds Around 20 Minutes per OT
Chart 6: Average Duration of Overtime Games
Average Length of Game
Regulation1 OT2 OT3 OTType of Game2h0m2h30m2h50m3h4mGame Duration
Type of Game
Average Duration
# of games
Regulation
2h23m
6354
1 OT
2h45m
316
2 OT
2h55m
35
3 OT
3h4m
5
Games with one overtime usually last around 2h 35min (22 minutes longer than regulation games) and 2OT games are around 2h 55min long (another 20 minutes longer).
Games with 3 OT’s are very rare and took on average 3h 3min.
Anything Else?
Are you interested in any other statistics around NBA game length? I have all the data, so ask me in the comments and I’ll add it to the article!
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