Okay, so the other day, I was watching an NBA game with a buddy, and we got into this debate about how long the games actually are. I mean, you see “48 minutes” on the clock, but it always feels way longer, right?
So, I decided to do a little digging, a little experiment of my own. I wanted to see, for myself, how long a “typical” NBA game takes from start to finish.
My Little Experiment
First, I grabbed a notebook and a pen – old school, I know. Then, I picked three random NBA games from the past week. Didn’t matter who was playing, just wanted a decent sample.
- Game 1: I put on the game, and just as the opening tip-off happened, that is when I started my timer on my watch.
- Game 2: Did the same thing as the first game.
- Game 3: This is the last game of my experiment, did exactly the same thing.
During each game, I basically just watched like normal, but every time there was a timeout, a foul, halftime, anything that stopped the clock, I made a note. It’s crazy how many stoppages there are! Between free throws, reviews, and everything else, it adds up.
Halftime, of course, was the big one. Most of them were pretty close to 15 minutes, give or take. That’s a good chunk of time right there.
The Results?
So, after watching all three games and crunching my very scientific data (haha), here’s what I found:
- Game 1: Total time, from tip-off to final buzzer, was 2 hours and 18 minutes.
- Game 2: This one was a bit longer, clocking in at 2 hours and 25 minutes.
- Game 3: The last game was the quickest, at 2 hours and 12 minutes.
So, on average, we’re looking at somewhere between 2 hours and 15 minutes to 2 hours and 30 minutes for a typical NBA game. Way longer than the 48 minutes of game time, right? That’s all those stoppages and, of course, that 15-minute halftime break. And then I finally know that I can tell my buddy that I was right! A typical NBA game really takes more than 2 hours to finish.
