The purpose of the present study was to examine differences in game-related statistical
parameters between National Basketball Association (NBA) regular and post-season competitive periods and to determine which variables have the greatest contribution in discriminating between winning and losing game outcomes. The data scraping technique was used
to obtain publicly available NBA game-related statistics over a three-year span (2016–
2019). The total number of games examined in the present investigation was 3933 (3690
regular season and 243 post-season games). Despite small to moderate effect sizes, the
findings suggest that NBA teams’ style of play (i.e., tactical strategies) changes when transitioning from the regular to post-season competitive period. It becomes more conservative
(i.e., fewer field goal attempts, assists, steals, turnovers, and points scored),