LOS ANGELES, USA - The NBA has again tweaked its finals format to ease travel demands and give players more rest in the championship series slated to tip off on June 2.
Under the revised format, if the title series goes a full 7 games it will end on June 19, with two rest days guaranteed any time the series shifts to a different city.
That means the league is scrapping the long-standing Tuesday-Thursday-Sunday schedule for the finals, which had been standard since 2003.
Games one and two will now be played on Thursday, June 2 and Sunday June 5, before the series shifts to the second city for games 3 and 4 on Wednesday June 8 and Friday June 10.
The series would shift back and forth between cities for games 5, 6 and 7 as necessary in the 2-2-1-1-1- format instituted in 2014 with two days between each contest.
The changes follow last months announcement that the league had reduced the number of back-to-back games and sets of four games in 5 nights in its regular-season schedule.
The 2015-16 season, which begins on October 27, includes only 27 cases of a team playing 4 games in 5 nights - a 61 percent reduction from the 2014-15 campaign.
2016 NBA finals schedule
Game 1: Thursday, June 2
Game 2: Sunday, June 5
Game 3: Wednesday June 8
Game 4: Friday, June 10
Game 5: Monday, June 13 (if necessary)
Game 6: Thursday, June 16 (if necessary)
Game 7: Sunday, June 19 (if necessary)
– Rappler.com