The 2026 NBA All-Star Game does not have traditional overtime periods. If a game in the new three-team, round-robin format is tied at the end of regulation, the winner is the first team to score five points.
Team USA vs. Team World isn't the only new wrinkle in this year's NBA All-Star Game format. For the second year in a row, the league is running a mini-tournament with multiple teams instead of the traditional West vs. East matchup with standard game rules. This year we have two teams of players from the US and one team of international players facing off in round-robin tournament, with two teams advancing to the Final.
That structure and the number of teams is different but the league will use the same games rules as they did last year for their four-team tournament.
NBA All-Star rules:
Because of the round-robin format with multiple games for each team in a short period of time, everything will be abbreviated.
- Each game lasts for 12 minutes
- Each team is allowed one coach's challenge and two timeouts
- Players can not foul out
- The time with the highest score at the end of 12 minutes wins. If the game is tied, it goes to overtime
NBA All-Star Overtime rules:
- There is no game clock during overtime
- The first team to score five points wins
- Each team gets one timeout during overtime
- Teams go into the penalty on the second foul during overtime
None of the three games in last season's NBA All-Star mini tournament went to overtime, with seven points as the closest margin of victory. In all three games, at least one team scored 41 or more points so, while the games may not be close, we can definitely expect them to be high-scoring. The top individual scoring performances were Jayson Tatum with 15, Steph Curry and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander with 12 and Victor Wembanyama with 11.
The traditional NBA All-Star format only ended up in overtime six times, with only two coming in the post-merger era — 1987 and 2003's legenday double-overtime game.