{"id":70453,"date":"2025-08-15T14:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T14:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/70453\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T14:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T14:58:08","slug":"breaking-down-the-2025-26-nba-schedule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/70453\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Down the 2025\u201326 NBA Schedule"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning, I\u2019m Dan Gartland. I wish I could say I was surprised that Little League had to issue a statement urging people not to bet on its games<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s SI:AM:\u00a0
\ud83d\udcc5 NBA schedule released<\/a>
\u26bd Premier League predictions<\/a>
\ud83d\udc6e Feds nearing hoops indictments<\/a><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re reading this on SI.com, click here to subscribe<\/a> and receive SI:AM directly in your inbox each morning.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a real NBA sicko, you\u2019ve known about some of the biggest matchups on deck for this upcoming season since last Friday<\/a>, when ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania leaked the opening night and Christmas Day games. If you\u2019ve been enjoying the last few weeks of summer instead of thinking about winter sports, I can\u2019t blame you. But now that the league has announced the full schedule, it\u2019s time to spend at least a few minutes thinking about basketball.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The biggest thing to know about the upcoming NBA season is that the way you\u2019ll watch some games has changed. Turner Sports no longer has any broadcast rights, which means the end of games on TNT (but not the end of Inside the NBA<\/a>). Instead, national broadcasts will be split between ESPN\/ABC, NBC\/Peacock and Prime Video.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Liam McKeone already listed seven of the biggest games on the schedule<\/a>. Here are a few of the ones he picked, plus some more that I\u2019ll be looking forward to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rockets at Thunder: Tuesday, Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC\/Peacock<\/p>\n

This is the very first game of the season, and it\u2019s a really good one. You\u2019ve got the defending champion Thunder facing off against the team that could be their biggest challenger in the West, the new-look Rockets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Houston took a big swing this summer in trading for Kevin Durant, and now his first game in his new uniform will be against the franchise with which he started his career. Durant famously left the Thunder for the Warriors after getting within striking distance of a championship several times (four conference finals appearances and one NBA Finals loss). Now he\u2019ll have to sit on the bench and watch as this iteration of the Thunder receives the championship rings he was never able to secure in OKC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spurs at Mavericks: Wednesday, Oct. 22 at 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN<\/p>\n

Cooper Flagg gets to make his much-anticipated NBA debut at home in Dallas, and he\u2019ll do so against another young phenom: Victor Wembanyama. It\u2019s also a significant game for Wemby, who will be playing his first game since a blood clot prematurely ended his sophomore season on Feb. 12 after just 46 games.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wembanyama is much farther along in his development than Flagg, but this has the potential to be a great in-state rivalry for years to come.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thunder at Pacers: Thursday, Oct. 23 at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN<\/p>\n

The league really front-loaded the schedule, huh? Two days after opening the season against one of the greatest players in the history of the game, the Thunder will travel to Indianapolis for an NBA Finals rematch against the Pacers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tyrese Haliburton\u2019s Achilles injury puts a major damper on this one, but it\u2019ll still be fun to see these two teams back on the court so soon after the Finals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lakers at Knicks: Sunday, Feb. 1 at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN<\/p>\n

Do you remember what happened the last time the Lakers played at Madison Square Garden? They shocked the world hours later by trading Anthony Davis for Luka Don\u010di\u0107. Bizarrely, that game was also on Feb. 1. That\u2019s too much of a coincidence, right? The schedule makers had to have known what they were doing by making Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s first game in purple and gold at the World\u2019s Most Famous Arena on the anniversary of the blockbuster deal. Maybe they\u2019ll trade LeBron after this one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Timberwolves at Nuggets: Thursday, Dec. 25 at 10:30 p.m. ET on ABC\/ESPN<\/p>\n

There was a time not too long ago, when these two teams met in the playoffs in back-to-back seasons, that it seemed like this could be a great Western Conference rivalry for years to come. But it\u2019s been rather one-sided of late. Minnesota has won six straight over Denver, dating back to Game 6 of their 2024 second-round playoff series. Most of those games haven\u2019t been close, but the last one was an epic 140\u2013139 double-overtime thriller in which Nikola Joki\u0107 had 61 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists (the highest-scoring triple-double in NBA history). Don\u2019t expect a repeat of that performance, but it\u2019s always fun when two teams with a history meet in primetime. What a great way to wrap up your Christmas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRivals Week\u201d: Jan. 20\u201324<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not totally buying this one. This is apparently the fourth annual \u201cRivals Week\u201d, so maybe I\u2019m a bad fan for not remembering the previous three. But at the same time, some of these \u201cclassic and budding rivalries,\u201d as the league puts it<\/a>, are a real stretch. Sure, you\u2019ve got another Finals rematch with the Pacers traveling to Oklahoma City and a few truly classic rivalries like Lakers vs. Clippers and Knicks vs. Sixers, but some of the rest are pretty bogus. Cavaliers vs. Hornets? Thunder vs. Bucks? They\u2019re calling Rockets vs. Pistons a rivalry because twins Amen and Ausar Thompson will be on opposite sides. O.K., fine. But do the other 28 guys on the two rosters give a damn about that?<\/p>\n

The most interesting of the 11 so-called \u201crivalry\u201d games is the last one: Lakers at Mavericks on Jan. 24 (8:30 p.m. ET on ABC). That\u2019ll be Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s first game back in Dallas this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Liverpool\u2019s<\/p>\n

Liverpool struck gold in Arne Slot\u2019s first season. \/ IMAGO\/Xinhua<\/p>\n

\u2026 things I saw last night:\u00a0
5. Edouard Julien\u2019s homer<\/a> against Tarik Skubal. It was the first homer Skubal has allowed to a lefty this season and Julien\u2019s first homer against a lefty<\/a> in 262 career games.\u00a0
4. Two great (and nearly identical) defensive plays by George Lombard Jr.<\/a>, the Yankees\u2019 No. 1 prospect.\u00a0
3. A double off the wall<\/a> for Ozzie Albies to give the Braves the lead over the Mets. New York has now lost 13 of its last 15<\/a>.\u00a0
2. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.\u2019s go-ahead homer in the seventh<\/a> to give Max Scherzer his third win of the year. Scherzer pitched seven innings and allowed just one run on five hits. It was the first time in exactly two years<\/a> that Scherzer pitched at least seven innings and did not allow more than one run.\u00a0
1. Shae O\u2019Rourke\u2019s two goals<\/a> for Tennessee in an upset victory over defending NCAA women\u2019s soccer champions and No. 1-ranked North Carolina. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good morning, I\u2019m Dan Gartland. I wish I could say I was surprised that Little League had to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-70453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}