NBA Playoffs 2026: First Round Games, TV Schedule, How to Watch Tonight’s Games
NBA playoffs for $30 a month
ESPN Unlimited
The NBA playoffs started on time earlier this month, but while the playoff calendar hasn’t changed this year, the broadcast schedule has changed for the 2026 playoffs.
Under the NBA’s new media rights agreement, games this season are divided among three broadcast partners: Disney (ABC/ESPN), Comcast (NBC/Peacock) and Amazon (Prime Video). Each of these three franchises has a share of the playoffs.
Here’s what you need to know to watch the 2026 NBA playoffs in this new broadcast era of professional basketball.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder have a first-round matchup against the Phoenix Suns as they try to repeat as NBA champions.
How to watch the NBA playoffs
The channel lineup required for the NBA playoffs is different this year. No more games on TNT and NBA TV. Instead, you’ll need a TV subscription with ABC, ESPN, NBC and the NBC Sports Network — plus Amazon Prime. Or you can go the streaming route and use Prime Video, Peacock and ESPN Unlimited.
NBC/Peacock has coverage of the first round. It will appear in 23 first-round games and 11 games in the second and final rounds of the Western Conference. All of its games will be broadcast on Peacock and rebroadcast on NBC or NBCSN.
The rest of the first round games will be split between ESPN/ABC and Prime Video. This year’s Eastern Conference Finals will be on ESPN/ABC. And in June, the NBA Finals will air on ABC.
You can see all the first round matchups and the TV schedule here.
Peacock will broadcast NBA playoff games from the first round to the Western Conference Finals. Games on the Peacock will also appear on NBC or the NBC Sports Network, so you don’t really need a Peacock to have access to every NBA playoff game.
You can stream all NBA playoff broadcasts with Peacock’s Premium plan for $11 per month. Read our Peacock review.
Prime Video will show the first and second round matches until May 17.
Prime Video is included with an Amazon Prime subscription for $15 per month or $139 per year. You can also subscribe only Main Video for $9 a month. Read our Prime Video review.
With ESPN Unlimited, you can watch every NBA playoff game on ESPN or ABC. It will have coverage of every round of the playoffs, including the Eastern Conference Finals and the NBA Finals.
The ESPN Unlimited plan costs $30 per month (or $300 per year) and allows you to stream all of ESPN’s linear networks: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, ESPN Deportes, SEC Network and ACC Network. You also get access to programming on ESPN on ABC, ESPN Plus, ESPN3, SECN Plus and ACCNX. Read our ESPN Unlimited review.
(There’s also the $13-month ESPN Select plan, which is a rebranding of ESPN Plus. With it, you’ll have access to thousands of live sports — think minor college conferences, whose games you can’t watch anywhere else — but not the NBA.)
The best NBA Playoffs live TV streaming service
If you already subscribe to Amazon Prime, you only need four TV channels to get full coverage of the NBA playoffs: ABC, ESPN, NBC and NBC Sports Network. The catch is NBCSN, which Comcast relaunched late last year ahead of its Winter Olympics coverage.
The five biggest live TV streaming services — DirectTV, Fubo, Hulu Plus Live TV, A sling again YouTube TV — each carries ABC, NBC and ESPN, but I can only find NBCSN in the YouTube TV channel list. So, that’s the pick for the NBA playoffs if you don’t want to miss a game.
YouTube TV costs $83 per month and includes ABC, ESPN, NBC and the NBC Sports Network. Plug in your ZIP code to the YouTube TV welcome page to see which local networks are available in your area. There is a five-day trial, and the first three months are discounted to $68 per month for new subscribers.
Read our YouTube TV review.
Live TV streaming services allow you to cancel anytime and require a strong internet connection. Want more information? Check out our guide to live TV streaming services and our picks for the best sports streaming services.
