NBA officially announces Finals schedule: starts June 4, ends by June 20 at the latest, adjusted for World Cup

On January 21 Beijing time, with only a few weeks left until the 2026 NBA All-Star Weekend, the league has revealed the schedule for the 2026 Finals, which will kick off on June 4 (Beijing time, unless otherwise noted).

Below is the full schedule officially announced by the league:

Game 1: June 4

Game 2: June 6

Game 3: June 9

Game 4: June 11

Game 5 (if necessary): June 14

Game 6 (if necessary): June 17

Game 7 (if necessary): June 20

Sports media analyst Lewis wrote that traditionally the NBA Finals schedule is announced later, but this season the league made slight adjustments to the regular season timetable due to the FIFA World Cup taking place concurrently in North America.

Lewis mentioned that the NBA Finals usually start on a Thursday local time, and originally Game 4 was scheduled for June 13. However, since the U.S. men's national soccer team will face Paraguay that evening, the NBA chose to avoid conflict by rescheduling the game.

The U.S. men's soccer team also has a match on June 20 against Australia, but since that game will be held during the day locally, it will not overlap with a possible Game 7 of the Finals.

Lewis stated this will be the first time since 1970 that the NBA Finals schedule does not include any games on a Sunday local time. Also, having a Game 5 on a Saturday, as is the case this year, is very rare — he pointed out that since 1981, Finals games on Saturdays only occurred once before, in 2021, due to schedule delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the latest championship odds, the top three favorites are the Thunder, Nuggets, and Spurs, all from the Western Conference, with the Thunder holding a significant lead in the betting lines.