NEW YORK - NBA owners and players ended a marathon negotiation session early on Thursday after meeting for more than 15 hours in talks aimed at ending the lockout.

They'll return to the table Thursday afternoon.

"We were able to work through a number of different issues today regarding our system," union president Derek Fisher said. "We can't say that major progress was made in any way, but some progress was made on system issues. Obviously enough for us to come back at 2 pm (Thursday)."