The Longest NBA Game Lasted 78 Minutes With Six Overtimes

Modern NBA fans complain about games lasting too long, but they have nothing on the fans who attended the longest game in NBA history. On January 6, 1951, the Indianapolis Olympians and Rochester Royals played a game that would go down in the record books. The match lasted a grueling 78 minutes of game time and required six overtime periods to decide a winner. The final score was a modest 75-73 in favor of the Olympians. Remarkably, neither team scored at all during the first four overtime periods. The game was so exhausting that players from both teams could barely move by the end. This record still stands today and is unlikely to be broken due to modern NBA rules that make such marathon games improbable.