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Two teams of five players compete over four quarters of 12 minutes, so a game has 48 minutes of playing time. The clock stops for fouls, timeouts and many other pauses, which is why a game usually takes two hours or more on the clock on the wall. The team with more points at the end wins. If the score is level, the teams play a five-minute overtime, and keep playing further overtimes until one side is ahead.

A basket is worth two points from inside the three-point arc, three points from beyond it, and one point for each free throw. Free throws are unopposed shots from the line, awarded after certain fouls. A foul on a player in the act of shooting earns that player free throws, two or three depending on the shot. If the shot goes in despite the foul, the basket counts and the player usually gets one more free throw. A player who commits six personal fouls is out of the game.

The shot clock gives the attacking team 24 seconds to get a shot away that at least hits the rim, otherwise the ball goes to the other side. Each team also has a limited number of timeouts to stop play, rest players and set up plays. Substitutions are unlimited, so coaches rotate players constantly.

The league has 30 teams split into two conferences, East and West. Each conference has three divisions of five teams. In the regular season every team plays 82 games, 41 at home and 41 away. Teams are ranked in the standings by winning percentage, which is wins divided by games played, so a team with a .600 record has won 60 per cent of its games. The standings page also shows games behind (GB), home and away records, the record over the last ten games and the current streak.

The postseason is played within each conference. In the format used at the time of writing, the top six teams in each conference qualify directly for the playoffs, and the teams that finish seventh to tenth enter a short play-in tournament that decides the final two places. The playoffs are then a series of knockout rounds. Each round is a best-of-seven series, meaning the first team to win four games advances. The winners of the East and the West meet in the NBA Finals.

Home court matters because the better-seeded team hosts more of the games in a series, so the order of the standings has real value through the whole season, not only at the end.

The traditional lineup has five positions: point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward and center. In practice these blend into three broad groups, guards, forwards and centers, which is also how N4's player directory lets you filter. Many players are listed with two positions, such as guard-forward, because modern basketball asks most players to dribble, pass and shoot.

Roles matter as much as positions. A point guard usually brings the ball up and creates shots for others, so assists matter most for them. Wings (guards and small forwards) score, defend the perimeter and often take three-pointers. Big men, the forwards and centers who play near the basket, are judged on rebounds, blocks and efficient scoring close to the rim. A sixth man is the best player who normally comes off the bench rather than starting. Compare players with similar jobs and the numbers tell a fairer story.

A box score lists every player's line. MIN is minutes played, PTS points, REB rebounds (both ends of the court), AST assists (a pass that leads directly to a basket), STL steals, BLK blocked shots and TO turnovers, which are possessions given away. FG, 3P and FT show shots made and attempted, so 7-15 means seven makes from 15 tries. PF is personal fouls, and +/- is how much the team outscored its opponent while that player was on the court.

Shooting percentages divide makes by attempts, but plain field-goal percentage treats a three the same as a two. True shooting fixes that by counting points against all shot attempts including free throws, using the formula points divided by twice the sum of field-goal attempts and 0.44 times free-throw attempts. It is a fairer measure of scoring efficiency than field-goal percentage alone.

Totals depend on minutes, so per 36 minutes scales a player's numbers as if they had played 36 minutes. This lets you compare a starter with a reserve who plays fewer minutes. Per-36 figures can flatter players with very small minutes totals, which is why N4 only rates players with a reasonable sample.

On a player profile, N4 shows six skill ratings and an overall number. Scoring is points per 36 minutes. Playmaking is assists per 36. Rebounding is rebounds per 36. Defence is steals plus blocks per 36. Shooting is true shooting percentage, and a player needs enough shot attempts to be rated. Efficiency is a per-36 measure of overall box-score impact: points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks, minus turnovers and missed shots. A label such as Scorer or Playmaker is taken from the player's highest rating.

Each rating is a ranking, not a raw number. A player's figure is compared with every other player that season who has played at least ten games averaging at least ten minutes, and the result is scaled from 40 to 99. The overall score blends the six, with scoring and efficiency counting most. These are N4's own ratings, not official NBA ratings. Defence uses only steals and blocks, so it cannot see positioning or guarding, and should be read with care.

Scores, schedules, standings, rosters and statistics come from API-Sports. Player photos, injury reports and roster moves come from ESPN's public feed. N4 stores what it receives, so a missing figure shows as a dash rather than a guess, and live data can lag the broadcast.