NBA
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7correct to beat the crowd
This NBA quiz now runs 179 free questions with answers, and the pool goes from easy to genuinely difficult NBA trivia. The warm-ups cover the things any fan knows: who plays at Madison Square Garden, who is the all-time leading scorer, how long the shot clock runs. Then it gets mean. A good chunk is NBA Finals trivia: the Celtics dynasty of the 1960s, Michael Jordan's six rings, the Finals MVP award and the upsets and sweeps that decided championships. The hard end digs into single-game records that have stood for decades, the first draft lottery, the ABA merger, forgotten dynasties from the 1950s and stat lines that look like typos. The newest section is modern NBA trivia for fans who live in the present: the Orlando bubble, the first NBA Cup, Jokic's Taco Bell draft moment, SGA's Canadian first, Wembanyama, Cooper Flagg's 1.8% lottery miracle, the Knicks ending a 53-year wait and eight straight seasons with a new champion. It suits pub-quiz regulars, trivia-night hosts who need questions with teeth, and anyone who wants to test how deep their NBA knowledge really goes. Every answer has been verified against a source, shown under each question once you answer.
30 of 179 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who was named Finals MVP in 2006 as his team won its first NBA championship?
Dwyane Wade
Dwyane Wade's team lost the first two games of that series, then he averaged more than 39 points as it won the next four.
Q 02Which team came back from 3–1 down to win the 2016 NBA Finals in seven games?
Cleveland Cavaliers
Cleveland Cavaliers became the first team to overturn a 3–1 deficit in the Finals, and the title ended the city's 52-year wait for a major championship.
Q 03Which holiday does the NBA mark each year with a five-game showcase?
Christmas Day
Christmas Day brings five NBA games one after another; on the holiday in 1984 Bernard King scored 60 points and still finished on the losing side.
Q 04Which sharpshooter scored eight points in 8.9 seconds to steal a 1995 playoff game on the road?
Reggie Miller
Reggie Miller hit a three, stole the inbounds pass and hit another, then sank two free throws, turning a 105–99 deficit into a 107–105 win.
Q 05Which violation is called for swatting a shot that is already on its way down?
Goaltending
Goaltending was first outlawed in the college game in the 1940s, because the era's towering centers kept swatting shots away at the rim.
Q 06Which player holds the record for most points scored in a single NBA game?
Wilt Chamberlain
Wilt Chamberlain scored his 100 in Hershey, Pennsylvania, in 1962; a poor foul shooter for his whole career, he made 28 of 32 free throws that night.
Q 07Who was the first overall pick in the 2003 NBA Draft?
LeBron James
LeBron James never had to leave home: his home-state team had just finished 17–65, won the draft lottery and took the Akron high-schooler first.
Q 08Which forward led the NBA in rebounding for seven straight seasons, the last three with the Chicago Bulls?
Dennis Rodman
Dennis Rodman won seven straight rebounding titles at just 6-foot-7, and reached the Hall of Fame while averaging only 7.3 points a game for his career.
Q 09Which point guard won back-to-back MVP awards in 2005 and 2006?
Steve Nash
Steve Nash was overlooked by the big American college programs and ended up at Santa Clara; he did not win the first of his two MVP awards until his ninth NBA season.
Q 10What is the award presented each year to the winner of the NBA Finals called?
Larry O'Brien Trophy
The Larry O'Brien Trophy is named for a politician turned commissioner: he chaired the Democratic Party, then took over the NBA in 1975 and pushed through its merger with the ABA.
Q 11Which player won the NBA Rookie of the Year award in 2019?
Luka Doncic
Luka Doncic arrived at 19 already a EuroLeague champion and MVP with Real Madrid, which is why 98 of the 100 first-place votes went his way.
Q 12Where do the Toronto Raptors play their home games?
Scotiabank Arena
Scotiabank Arena opened in 1999 and took its current name in 2018; before it, the Raptors played their home games in SkyDome, the Blue Jays' baseball stadium.
Q 13Which NBA player is known for his signature skyhook shot?
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar honed the skyhook in college once the dunk was banned, days after his 1967 title; critics dubbed the ban the 'Alcindor Rule', after the name he then used.
Q 21Who was the first NBA player to be unanimously named MVP?
Stephen Curry
Stephen Curry took all 131 first-place votes in 2016; Shaquille O'Neal in 2000 and LeBron James in 2013 had each missed a unanimous award by a single vote.
Q 22Which NBA team plays at Madison Square Garden?
New York Knicks
New York Knicks teams have called Madison Square Garden home since 1968, and in 2026 they ended a 53-year wait by winning their first championship since 1973.
Q 23How many games are in a standard NBA regular season for each team?
82
82 games is the full schedule, 41 at home and 41 away; lockouts cut it to 50 games in 1999 and 66 in 2011–12.
Q 14What team drafted Shaquille O'Neal first overall in 1992?
Orlando Magic
Orlando Magic luck held: a year after drafting Shaquille O'Neal they won the lottery again and swapped that pick for Penny Hardaway, and the pair reached the 1995 Finals.
Q 15Which NBA team moved from Seattle to Oklahoma City in 2008?
Thunder
The Thunder went 23–59 in their first season after the move, yet reached the NBA Finals just three years later.
Q 16Who holds the NBA record for most career assists?
John Stockton
John Stockton piled up 15,806 assists by almost never sitting out: he missed only 22 games in 19 seasons, all with one team.
Q 17Which team did Allen Iverson lead to the 2001 NBA Finals?
Philadelphia 76ers
Allen Iverson, the 2001 MVP, carried the Philadelphia 76ers to the Finals, where they took Game 1 in overtime before losing to the Lakers in five.
Q 18Which pint-sized guard beat his own teammate to win the 1986 Slam Dunk Contest?
Spud Webb
Spud Webb, a rookie more than a foot shorter than Dominique Wilkins, outdunked his famous teammate on the same 10-foot rim everyone else uses.
Q 19Which NBA franchise did Tim Duncan spend his entire 19-season career with?
San Antonio Spurs
San Antonio Spurs fortunes turned on one bad year: with their star center injured they fell into the lottery, won the first pick, and Tim Duncan repaid them with five titles.
Q 20Who was named Finals MVP in 2026 after leading New York to its first NBA title in 53 years?
Jalen Brunson
Jalen Brunson was only a second-round pick, 33rd overall in 2018; eight years later he was Finals MVP for a team that had not won a title since 1973.
Q 24The 1992 'Dream Team' of NBA stars won Olympic gold in which host city?
Barcelona
Barcelona saw the first Olympic team of NBA stars win by an average of almost 44 points, while opposing players asked to have their photographs taken with them.
Q 25Which French teenager was the first overall pick of the 2023 NBA Draft?
Victor Wembanyama
Victor Wembanyama was a unanimous Rookie of the Year, and within three seasons he had taken a team that won 22 games the year before he arrived to the NBA Finals.
Q 26Which NBA coach is the all-time leader in regular season wins?
Gregg Popovich
Gregg Popovich won every one of those games with one franchise; the run began in 1996 when, as its general manager, he removed the coach 18 games into the season and took the job himself.
Q 27Which center nicknamed 'The Process' won the NBA's MVP award in 2023?
Joel Embiid
Joel Embiid was drafted third in 2014 but did not play his first NBA game until October 2016, more than two years later.
Q 28Which player was the prize of the NBA's first draft lottery, in 1985?
Patrick Ewing
Patrick Ewing was the prize of a lottery invented to stop teams losing on purpose: in 1985 every team that missed the playoffs had an equal chance at the first pick.
Q 29Which Lakers guard's silhouette inspired the NBA logo?
Jerry West
Jerry West: designer Alan Siegel based the 1969 logo on a photo of the Lakers guard dribbling, which is why West was nicknamed 'The Logo'.
Q 30Which Argentine star won four NBA titles and an Olympic gold medal in 2004?
Manu Ginóbili
Manu Ginóbili was only the 57th pick of the 1999 draft, yet in 2004 he led Argentina past a United States team of NBA players on the way to that gold.