The Milwaukee Bucks will resume the 2019-20 NBA season on Friday, July 31 against the Boston Celtics at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World in Orlando, the NBA announced today. The matchup is the first of eight “seeding games” the Bucks will play to determine the participants and seeds for the 2020 NBA Playoffs. Overall, the Bucks are one of 22 teams that will be resuming the season in Orlando.
“We’re thrilled to resume our season in Orlando thanks to the league’s extensive plan that puts everyone’s health and safety first,” said Bucks General Manager Jon Horst. “We commend Adam Silver for his steady leadership during the hiatus and for working closely with the National Basketball Players Association to produce comprehensive protocols that will enable us to complete the season and to crown an NBA champion. Our players are excited to get back on the court. While we will miss the opportunity of playing in front of our fans at Fiserv Forum, we will be grateful for Bucks fans cheering us on from afar.”
All seeding and playoff games will take place at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, without fans, in one of three venues: the Arena, the Field House and Visa Athletic Center. The eight-game seeding schedule for the Bucks is below.
| Game | Date | Opponent (Current Record) | Tip Off (CT) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Friday, July 31 | vs. Boston Celtics (43-21) | 5:30 p.m. |
| 2 | Sunday, August 2 | at Houston Rockets (40-24) | 7:30 p.m. |
| 3 | Tuesday, August 4 | vs. Brooklyn Nets (30-34) | 12:30 p.m. |
| 4 | Thursday, August 6 | vs. Miami Heat (41-24) | 3 p.m. |
| 5 | Saturday, August 8 | at Dallas Mavericks (40-27) | 7:30 p.m. |
| 6 | Monday, August 10 | vs. Toronto Raptors (46-18) | 5:30 p.m. |
| 7 | Tuesday, August 11 | at Washington Wizards (24-40) | 8 p.m. |
| 8 | Thursday, August 13 | at Memphis Grizzlies (32-33) | TBD |
FOX Sports Wisconsin will televise a number of the seeding games featuring Jim Paschke, Marques Johnson and Zora Stephenson. Ted Davis will have the radio call of each game on WTMJ Radio and across the statewide BMO Bucks Radio Network. The complete schedule of telecasts, along with additional broadcast details, will be announced at a later date.
The Bucks enter the season restart with the NBA’s top record at 53-12 (.815) and have already clinched a playoff spot. 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.
If the team with the eighth-best combined winning percentage (regular-season games and seeding games) in a conference is more than four games ahead of the team with the ninth-best combined winning percentage in the same conference, then the team with the eighth-best winning percentage would be the eighth playoff seed in that conference. If the team with the eighth-best combined winning percentage in a conference (Team 8) is four games or fewer ahead of the team with the ninth-best combined winning percentage in the same conference (Team 9), then those two teams would compete in a play-in tournament to determine the eighth playoff seed in the conference. The play-in tournament will be double elimination for Team 8 and single elimination for Team 9.
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.
