How to play NBA Box Score Top 5s
NBA Box Score Top 5s shows a real NBA regular-season box score with every player’s name hidden. For each team you see the top five players by minutes, plus two bench players, and you fill in who they are.
Choosing a game
Pick a team, then a season from 1960 through 2025 (shown like 2024–25), then any game that team played. Each stat line shows minutes, points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, turnovers, and field goal, three-point and free throw makes and attempts.
What “Top 5” means
The box score data doesn’t say who started a game, so each team’s Top 5 are the five players who logged the most minutes. A Bench section shows the players with the sixth and seventh most minutes. For some early seasons where minutes weren’t recorded, players are ranked by points scored instead.
The three modes
- Easy: type any player from either team and he fills in wherever he belongs. Order doesn’t matter.
- Medium: for your team, click a spot in the list and name the player who fills it. The other team works like Easy.
- Hard: for both teams, click a spot and name the player who fills it.
Scoring and tips
There is no clock. You’re tracked on how many players you found out of the total and how many wrong guesses you made. Give up reveals every name, and the share text never includes player names.
- The leader in points and minutes is often the team’s best player. Start there.
- Rebounds and blocks point to big men, and assists point to guards.
- Think about the era. Turnovers, steals and blocks weren’t officially tracked in the earliest seasons.
Where the data comes from
Box scores come from BALLDONTLIE, a basketball statistics service.