Hardwood Classics
| NBA TV: Hardwood Classics, presented by The History Channel (also known as NBA's Greatest Games) | |
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| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | N/A |
| Production | |
| Running time | approx. 2 hours |
| Release | |
| Original network | NBA TV |
| Original release | October 1999 – present |
Hardwood Classics is a television series that airs on NBA TV and features many of the greatest classic games recorded on videotape or film in National Basketball Association history. The show is produced by NBA Entertainment. During its earlier years on NBA TV, the series would air frequently in various timeslots, including at a set time on Thursday afternoons for a number of years. However, as the network has increased its output of originally-produced programming and live game coverage, Hardwood Classics airs more sporadically, with its most frequent airings taking place during the NBA offseason.
Each episode normally airs two hours in length (condensed down from the normal two-and-a-half-hour length of a live telecast), although there have been some episodes that were only thirty to sixty minutes long, due to lack of complete footage, or were preserved as newsreels for a majority of games played in the 1950s. And there are still some episodes which were aired in a full two-and-a-half hours of game time. Some recent games, however (e.g. 2008 NBA Finals) were shortened to only an hour despite the full two-hour availability of game footage; they did manage to air Game 4 of that series in full when it was shown as part of the Lakers vs. Celtics finals marathon in 2010. In addition, was also used and spliced to a previously aired game, as seen in the baseline camera angles substituting for the normal television game angles during Game 5 of the 1993 First Round between the New Jersey Nets and Cleveland Cavaliers.
The series, originally titled NBA's Greatest Games, debuted in 1999, alongside the formation of NBA TV (then nba.com TV). The program was re-titled NBA TV: Hardwood Classics, presented by The History Channel, in March 2004 (retitled simply as NBA TV: Hardwood Classics when it moved to NBA TV in 2005). However, some episodes still run under the Greatest Games title, although recent re-airings of prior Greatest Games episodes were now retitled under the Hardwood Classics banner.
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