An NBA game is divided into four quarters, each lasting 12 minutes. This makes for 48 minutes of total regulation play. The first two quarters make up the first half, and the last two quarters make up the second half.

Between the first and second quarters, and between the third and fourth quarters, there's a short break of 130 seconds. A longer break, called halftime, takes place between the second and third quarters. Halftime lasts for 15 minutes, giving players a chance to rest and coaches a moment to adjust their strategy.

While the game is 48 minutes long on paper, a real game takes much longer because the clock stops frequently. One major reason for this is timeouts. Timeouts are strategic breaks that coaches or players can call to stop the game, rest, or draw up a play.

Each team gets a total of seven timeouts during a regulation game. Here’s how they are structured:

There are two mandatory timeouts per quarter. If no team has taken a timeout by the 6:59 mark, the official scorer will charge one to the home team. If no timeout has been taken by the 2:59 mark, the scorer charges one to the team that hasn't been charged yet. A team is limited to four timeouts in the fourth quarter. If a team has more than four timeouts remaining when the fourth quarter begins, they are trimmed down to just four.

What happens if the score is tied when the 48 minutes are up? The game goes into overtime. An overtime period is five minutes long. The teams play as many overtime periods as needed until one team is ahead when the clock runs out.

Timeout rules are simpler in overtime. Each team receives two timeouts per overtime period. Unused timeouts from regulation do not carry over.

Ready to check your understanding of how an NBA game is structured?

Now that you understand the timing and structure of a game, you're ready to learn about how points are scored.

Let's simplify it. Think of an NBA game like a movie with four 12-minute scenes. Between the first two and the last two scenes, you have tiny breaks, but the big intermission—halftime—happens right in the middle, between the second and third quarters.

If the teams are tied after those 48 minutes, they just keep playing 5-minute overtime rounds until someone finally wins. The clock only stops for things like fouls, the ball going out of bounds, or when a coach calls a timeout to talk strategy.

To keep the game moving, the league even forces mandatory timeouts if the coaches haven't called any by certain points in the quarter.