The full NBA schedule won’t be released until next week, but ESPN released the Opening Night and Christmas Day games yesterday, and the Houston Rockets have both.
First, on October 21, the Rockets will travel to Oklahoma City to face what is likely to be one of their biggest competitors this year in the defending champion Thunder. This is likely to be the early game, as the second Opening Night game is between the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors in L.A.
The Rockets also got picked for the one of the NBA Christmas Day games. For this one, the Rockets will be on the road again, this time at the Lakers. According to ESPN, there are a total if five games on Christmas Day. They are:
• Cleveland Cavaliers at New York Knicks
• San Antonio Spurs at Oklahoma City Thunder
• Houston Rockets at Los Angeles Lakers
• Dallas Mavericks at Golden State Warriors
• Minnesota Timberwolves at Denver Nuggets
So that’s a solid slate of NBA games on Christmas, and we won’t have to wait long to find out if the new KD Rockets can hang in the west. That road game vs. OKC is definite early-season measuring stick.
I’m sure the Rockets will have some more national TV games once the full schedule is released, but you know we’ll be here for all of them either way, and we’ll be back next week with more schedule highlights once the full schedule is released.