Own the Court
Name players. Claim hexes. Torch the competition.
How to play Own the Court
Own the Court is the strategy game the site is named after. Two players fight over a hex board where every tile carries a basketball category — a franchise, an honour, a statistical threshold. You claim tiles by naming real NBA players who fit, and the winner is whoever owns more of the board when it fills up. What turns it from a trivia quiz into a strategy game is that a correct answer does not just claim one hex.
Claiming a hex
Tap any unclaimed hex to see its category — Lakers, All-Star, 25+ PPG — then type a player who satisfies it and submit. Get it right and the hex is yours. Every player is a one-shot weapon: once they successfully claim a tile they are retired for the rest of the game and cannot be used again. A wrong guess, however, does not burn them, so a name you misfired with is still available elsewhere on the board.
Spill and steal
This is the heart of the game. After a correct answer your player spills into every adjacent hex they also qualify for. Open neighbours are claimed automatically. Neighbours held by your opponent are stolen outright and flipped to your colour. One well-chosen player can therefore take three or four tiles in a single turn, including tiles your opponent already thought were safe. When you select a hex, every neighbour your player could capture is outlined in gold, so the board tells you where the big turns are before you commit.
Modes and the clock
Pass and Play puts two people on one device with no timer. Challenge a Friend runs the same game online in real time — share a four-letter room code and play from anywhere, with thirty seconds per turn. Time out twice in an online game and you forfeit. Solo Run asks you to fill the entire board alone, scored on how few players you needed, and there is a bot to practise against when no one else is around.
Strategy
Look for overlap, not for correctness. Any competent fan can answer a single hex; the players who win are the ones who spot where one name satisfies three touching categories at once. Early on, prefer central hexes with many neighbours over safe edge tiles, because central positions multiply future spills. Save your most versatile players — the multi-team, multi-honour superstars — for the moment they can steal rather than merely claim. And keep an eye on which stars your opponent has already spent, because a retired player is a category they can no longer easily reach.
Tips
- Prefer central hexes early — more neighbours means more spill potential for the rest of the game.
- Save versatile superstars for steals, not for tiles you could take with a role player.
- The gold outline shows every capturable neighbour before you commit. Read it every turn.
- A wrong guess does not retire the player, so a low-confidence attempt on a hard hex costs you only the turn.
- Track which players your opponent has burned — retired names are categories they can no longer cover.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I reuse a player?
- Only if they failed. A player who successfully claims a hex is retired for the rest of the game; a player who was guessed incorrectly stays available.
- How does stealing work?
- When your player spills into an adjacent hex your opponent owns and also qualifies for that hex's category, the tile flips to your colour immediately.
- Do I need an account to play online?
- No. Challenge a Friend works with a four-letter room code — share it and you are in. Accounts are optional and only sync streaks across devices.
- Is there a time limit?
- Only online, where each turn is thirty seconds and two timeouts forfeit the game. Pass and Play and Solo Run have no clock.
More NBA daily games
NBA Wordle — Guess today's NBA star · Mystery Player — Guess the hidden star from clues · NBA Connections — Find four groups of four · Higher or Lower — Call the stat. Ride the streak · NBA Bingo — Fill the card in 50 players · Franchise Tour — Name every team he played for · Draft Class — Name the top ten picks, in order · Drafted By — Which team actually took him? · Teammate Chain — Join two players through teammates · Shot Clock — Name them all before time runs out