Okay, so today I was messing around with the New York Times crossword, and I kept getting stuck on these clues related to basketball. I’m not a huge NBA expert, so some of these were real head-scratchers. I decided to actually do something about it instead of just giving up.

I started by grabbing my phone and firing up Google. I typed in “a in nba crossword clue” and hit enter. The search results were pretty helpful, It gave me a bunch of common answers related to basketball terms, player positions, and even some famous players’ * is a mess of options!
My “A” List for NBA Crossword Clues
I started making a list of all the potential “A” answers that seemed relevant. I figured this would be useful not just for today’s puzzle, but for future ones too. Here’s what I came up with:
- Arena: A place where basketball games are being held.
- Assist: when a player passes the ball to a teammate who then scores.
- All-Star: could refer to a type of game or a player selected for that game.
I went back to the crossword and tried to use my list. I looked at the number of letters in the blank space and any intersecting words. This helped me narrow it down a * the clue was something like “Hoops helper,” I’d be pretty confident going with “Assist”.
It took a little trial and error, that’s what crosswords is, and some crossing letters to help me get the word, but I managed to fill in all those NBA-related clues! It felt pretty good to actually learn something new while doing the puzzle. I still don’t know all NBA terms, But I’m definitely feeling more confident about tackling basketball clues in the future, And, My notes list gonna help me get those next time!