Before the season begins, you can expect teams to play just two preseason games during that 16-day training camp. Expect, as well, for those games to be played between the teams closest to each other on the map...In the lockout-shortened season of 1999, the playoffs didn't start until May 9. This season, the postseason is being pushed back just a week, with the first round set to begin on Saturday, April 28. Usually, the regular season ends on a Wednesday. But this season, it will be stretched one more day until Thursday, April 26, with just one off day before the playoffs begin. ...
(The average number of games per day is 7.4 in most seasons, was 8.1 in 1998-99, and will be 8.3 in 2011-12.) That number assumes that games will be played Monday, April 2 -- the night of the NCAA national championship game. The league hasn't played on the same night as the title game since 2004, but this season, it's likely that no day can be sacrificed.
...More than half of the league will be in action on the average day over those two months and each team will play an average of 3.9 games per week...Compared to an 82-game season, it means an extra game every two weeks...there's a possibility of back-to-back games in the conference semifinals (as there were in '99), something that probably depends on how long the first round goes...
Another question is whether or not the league will cancel two games in London between the New Jersey Nets and Orlando Magic. Those games were to take place March 7 and 9, with both teams having a few days off before and after to accommodate for travel and promotion. That trip would make the Magic and Nets' schedules even more compressed, so logic says that it won't be happening.
...very little rest for any Olympians who make it to The Finals. With the Olympics set to tip off on July 28, national teams will be starting training camps in early July.
