For many years beginning when the station assumed rights to the team's game telecasts in the late 1970s, WTBS (channel 17) in Atlanta – which served as the originating feed of the national TBS cable channel from December 1976 to October 2007 – aired some regular season games from the Atlanta Hawks (which was also owned by Ted Turner at the time), which also aired nationally on WTBS's superstation feed;[5] TBS aired the games nationwide until the telecasts became subjected to NBA blackout restrictions within 35 miles of the home team's arena, resulting in many Hawks away games televised by the network being unavailable to cable providers within the designated market area of the opposing team (this restriction was dropped when TNT gained the right to be the exclusive broadcaster of any game that it chose to carry).

By 1994, the opening round of the playoffs featured overlapping doubleheaders on both TBS and TNT on the first two nights of each series.

[13] For the 2000-2001 NBA season, the broadcasts were moved to Tuesdays, while TNT assumed rights to Wednesday and Thursday evening games.

Starting in 2000, the NBA spread out telecasts of games from the Eastern Conference and Western Conference playoff series so that only two series would play on their scheduled game days (so as to avoid scheduling conflicts and ratings competition between TNT and TBS).

On isolated occasions (typically during the playoffs) since TNT assumed partial cable rights to the NBA, TBS has served as an overflow feed for certain games.

In 2003, TBS aired a doubleheader of first round Game 6 matchups (the Indiana Pacers-Boston Celtics and San Antonio Spurs-Phoenix Suns series).

On May 14, 2004, the same situation arose, as Game 5 of the New Jersey Nets-Detroit Pistons playoff series lasted three overtimes.

However, due to scheduling conflicts with TBS, TNT had to air part of the Sacramento Kings-Minnesota Timberwolves game that was supposed to follow on NBA TV.

At the end of its 1987 playoff coverage, TBS used Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Takin' Care of Business"[19] as the soundtrack for the closing credits sequence during the game telecast.