NBA Word Search
The NBA as a league: the draft and the lottery, the playoffs and the Finals, the All Star game, the MVP, the commissioner, the Eastern and Western conferences, and the plays the league is known for, from the three pointer to the slam dunk.
The 24-second shot clock came in 1954, proposed by Danny Biasone, owner of the Syracuse Nationals, after a 1950 game had ended 19 to 18 with the Fort Wayne Pistons holding the ball for minutes at a time. The three pointer arrived in 1979, borrowed from the American Basketball Association, which had folded into the NBA three years earlier. The first All Star game was played in 1951 at the Boston Garden.
The draft lottery began in 1985, so that losing on purpose no longer guaranteed the first pick; the New York Knicks won the first one and chose Patrick Ewing. The championship trophy carries the name of Larry O'Brien, commissioner from 1975 to 1984, and the Finals MVP award is named for Bill Russell. Pat Riley, then coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, trademarked the word threepeat in 1988 after two straight titles, and his team lost the next Finals to Detroit.
Free NBA Word Search Online Game
Play the NBA word search in your browser, on your own or head to head against a friend in real time. Nothing to install and no account needed – send someone the link and you are both looking at the same grid.
NBA Word Search Printable Puzzles
Three sheets to choose from, free to print or download as a PDF. Pick a difficulty below, or open the printable NBA word search page to see all three together, generate a fresh grid, and check the full word list.
Hard
15x15 grid, up to 23 hidden words
Print or Download pdfMedium
12x12 grid, up to 15 hidden words
Print or Download pdfEasy
10x10 grid, 5 words across and down
Print or Download pdf
Puzzle Vocabulary Words
Below you can see all possible words that the topic NBA has.
Depends on difficulty level you select in the game amount of words hidden in the puzzle will be different.
In Easy game you have to find up to 5 words, medium game can have up to 15 words and hard puzzle can have up to 23 words.
Every time you start a new game - our word search generator will pick random words to build the puzzle.
- All Star
- Arena
- Commissioner
- Conference
- Courtside
- Draft
- Eastern
- Ejection
- Finals
- Flagrant
- Free Agent
- Game Seven
- Halftime
- Hardwood
- Jumbotron
- Lockout
- Lottery
- MVP
- Overtime
- Parade
- Playoffs
- Point Guard
- Ring
- Rivalry
- Rookie
- Rotation
- Seeding
- Shot Clock
- Slam Dunk
- Sneakers
- Standings
- Starter
- Sweep
- Technical
- Three Pointer
- Threepeat
- Trade
- Triple Double
- Trophy
- Western