If you are anything like me, you are craving basketball badly. It has been nearly two months since the Miami Heat defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 5 of the NBA Finals.

Seriously. Two months.

While this won’t be as exciting as the debut of a new NBA season — the pronounced dichotomy between the elite teams and below-average teams should make for an interesting regular season dynamic — NBA 2K13 will be released on Oct. 2 in North America. To give insatiable NBA fans a taste, they will release a one-quarter demo on Sept. 25, and Sept. 26 in select international markets (via @Ronnie2K.)

The demo will feature the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder. The developers will host the first official 2K13 game today at 4 p.m. CST which you can catch live on twitch. If you are fortunate enough to have a Gold membership for XBOX live, you will have the opportunity to play quick one-quarter games online for a week after the demo is released.

It may be virtual basketball but it is basketball. And for that, we thank you.

Photo courtesy of ESPN