NBA releases 2024-25 season schedule: Knicks vs. Celtics, Timberwolves vs. Lakers to play opening night
Although NBA action is still months away, the league released the full schedule for the 2024-25 season.
The regular season begins Oct. 22 when the reigning champion Boston Celtics host the New York Knicks at 7:30 p.m. ET on TNT. Olympic teammates LeBron James and Anthony Edwards will face off later in the evening when the Minnesota Timberwolves travel to Los Angeles to take on the Lakers at 10 p.m. ET on TNT.
The first five days of the 2024-25 regular season will feature 11 national television games as part of @Kia NBA Tip-Off 2024, with two doubleheaders each on TNT and ESPNand a tripleheader on NBATV.
The following day, Oct. 23, boasts a robust 10-game slate highlighted by a clash of MVPs when Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks take on Joel Embiid and the 76ers in Philadelphia at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. The Phoenix Suns and LA Clippers will then make history as the first game in the new Intuit Dome at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN.
Five of the first seven days of the NBA season will have games televised nationally either on ESPN or TNT.
Here’s how the 82-game schedule for each team breaks down:
National games are how the NBA and its broadcast partners try to bring in the most viewers by highlighting the teams they believe are most relevant that season and the stars they think will bring the most eyeballs. They are good indicators of who the league and those networks think matters this season.
The league will open its season with the Celtics getting their championship rings at home against the Knicks, matching up two historic franchises. Then the Lakers host the Timberwolves, as the NBA puts James against an up-and-coming young star.
The San Antonio Spurs and Victor Wembanyama will be on national TV 13 times despite winning just 22 games last season. Boston will be on national TV 26 times. The Lakers will be on there 29 times and the Knicks will be on national TV 24 times.
For starters, it’s called the NBA Cup. Last season it was held every Tuesday and Friday night in November but this year NBA Cup qualifying games don’t start until Nov. 12 and group play will go until Dec. 3, though on the same days. The final will be held Dec. 17 in Las Vegas.
A reminder that because of the NBA Cup, the NBA has only scheduled 80 games for each team and the other two games are TBD after the teams have finished their tournament schedules. Those games will be played between Dec. 10-16, based on how group play goes.
The NBA rolled out its five marquee games on its most important day of the season.
Wembanyama and the Spurs will start the day off with a trip to Madison Square Garden. New York is always Christmas catnip for the league but now it gets to pair its biggest market with an emerging superstar. The Sixers versus the Celtics is a classic rivalry.
Pitting Los Angeles and Warriors against one another on Christmas is basically copy-and-paste programming. It might be two teams fighting for a playoff spot, and it’s Steph Curry against James. It would’ve been interesting to see the Wolves and Nuggets face off after their great seven-game series this spring but the NBA split up that matchup.
Edwards gets a daytime spot against Luka Doncic and the Mavericks; Nikola Jokic is the final act of a five-game schedule.
It’s worth considering that the NBA will have competition again on its marquee day. The NFL stuck two games on Christmas this year, even if it is on a Wednesday. Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs will face the Pittsburgh Steelers at 1 p.m. ET, starting an hour after Wemby takes Manhattan.
The Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans — the reigning NFL MVP and one of its up-and-coming teams — play at 4:30 p.m. ET. If there’s any consolation for the NBA it’s that primetime should go unencumbered and that the NFL games will be on Netflix and not broadcast TV.
Whether that helps with ratings will remain to be seen — Netflix is pretty big, as you might have heard.
The Spurs will play three home games not at home this season. They’ll play their first two games after the All-Star break in Austin (against the Suns and Pistons) and one of their two games against the Pacers in Paris will be considered a home game.
This season, teams will average 14.9 back-to-back games, up about one per team from last season, but still down 4.4 back-to-back games from a decade ago, according to the NBA.
Teams also average five no-travel back-to-back games this season and 9.8 back-to-back games with travel.
The NBA tried to avoid having teams play certain games on the second night of back-to-back games (what it calls “high-profile national TV games”). Teams that play on Christmas Day, Saturday night games on ABC and the two TNT games on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, for example, will not play on the day before or after those games. The NBA did not schedule teams on ABC for Sunday afternoon games or NBA Cup games on the second game of a back-to-back.
There will be 34 nationally-televised games that will feature teams on the end of a back-to-back.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
