ESPN will televise NBA Countdown: NBA Schedule Release presented by Mountain Dew tonight, Friday, June 26, at 7 p.m. ET. The one-hour show will reveal the game matchups and the national television schedule for the NBA seeding games.
- The show features ESPN’s NBA Countdown team, including host Maria Taylor, analyst Jalen Rose and ESPN Senior NBA Insider Adrian Wojnarowski, in studio.
- Analysts Paul Pierce and Jay Williams will appear remotely.
- In addition to the schedule reveal, NBA Countdown: NBA Schedule Release will include expert analysis from the NBA Countdown team and an essay on the fight for social justice by Howard Bryant.
- The crew will also discuss what life will be like for NBA players on and off the court at the Walt Disney World Resort.
- Hoop Streams, ESPN’s digital NBA show, will air special pre- and post-NBA schedule release shows on the ESPN App, and ESPN’s Twitter and YouTube platforms.
- The pre-show will begin at 6:30 p.m. ET and the post-show starts at 8 p.m. ET.
- Cassidy Hubbarth hosts Hoop Streams with analysts Kendrick Perkins and Amin Elhassan.
Remaining Season and Playoffs:
- The 22 participating teams will be the eight teams in each conference with the highest current winning percentages and the six teams that are currently within six games of the eighth seed in either conference.
- Each participating team plays eight “seeding games,” as selected from its remaining regular-season matchups.
- At the conclusion of the seeding games, the seven teams in each conference with the highest combined winning percentages across regular-season games and seeding games will be the first through seventh seeds for the NBA Playoffs for that conference.
- The NBA’s standard playoff tiebreaker procedures will be used to break any ties on the basis of winning percentage.
- Once the 16-team playoff field is set, the NBA Playoffs will proceed in a traditional conference-based format with four rounds and best-of-seven series in each round.
- The 2020 NBA Finals will end no later than October 13.