NBA Updates PH – Next week, the NBA will release the complete NBA schedule for the 2023-24 season. However, we already know which games will be played on opening night and Christmas Day. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the season will begin on October 24. The current champions, Denver Nuggets, will face the Los Angeles Lakers, while the Golden State Warriors will play against the Phoenix Suns. On December 25, there will be five NBA games: New York Knicks vs. Milwaukee Bucks, Miami Heat vs. Philadelphia 76ers, Los Angeles Lakers vs. Boston Celtics, Phoenix Suns vs. Dallas Mavericks, and Denver Nuggets vs. Golden State Warriors, as reported by The Athletic.
More early information about the plan:
- Marc Stein says that Victor Wembanyama will play in his first NBA game on October 25 when the San Antonio Spurs host the Dallas Mavericks.
- On October 26, when Phoenix comes to Los Angeles, LeBron James and Kevin Durant will play against each other for the first time since 2018. (That game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors in 2018 took place on Christmas Day. In the third quarter, James hurt his hip.) The Athletic says that Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks will host Joel Embiid and the Sixers on the same night.
- On October 27, Miami will go to Boston for a repeat of the last two Eastern Conference finals. This news came from Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald.
- The Athletic says that the LA Clippers and the Lakers will play each other for the first time on November 1.
- The Athletic says that the Miami Heat will go to Denver on February 29 for a repeat of the 2023 NBA Finals.
NBA Schedule – Opening night
- The champions will get their rings before a repeat of the 2023 Western Conference Finals when Denver swept the Los Angeles Lakers. James and Anthony Davis agreed that the Denver Nuggets were the best team they had played against in their four years together.
- The Suns-Warriors game will be the first time Chris Paul has played against Phoenix since the Suns sent him to Golden State. It will also be Kevin Durant’s first game at Chase Center with fans there. The building opened after Durant left Golden State, and every time he has come back since, he has been hurt, except for a game on February 13, 2021, for which no tickets were sold because of a pandemic.
Day of Christmas
- This will be the first Christmas game between the Lakers and the Boston Celtics since 2008. This will also be the 11th straight year that the Golden State Warriors play on Christmas and the 17th straight year that James plays on Christmas. James was the first player in NBA history to play in 17 Christmas games. He did this last year.
- The Miami Herald says that Denver vs. Golden State will be on ABC at 2:30 p.m. ET, followed by LA vs. Boston at 5 p.m. ET on ABC and Miami vs. Philadelphia 76ers at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN. This means New York will play Milwaukee at noon, and Phoenix Suns will play Dallas at 10:30 at night.
In-season tournament
- On November 3, the first of seven event nights for the first in-season tournament will start. The group stage will continue on November 10, 14, 17, 21, 24, and 28, which are all Tuesdays and Fridays that month (except for November 7, which is Election Day).
- Six group winners and two wild cards will move on to the knockout stage. The quarterfinals will be played on December 4 and December 5, with the higher seed having a home-court advantage. The four winners will move on to Las Vegas, where the semifinals will be played on December 7, and the championship game will be played on December 9.
- The plan for tournament nights will be made public on Tuesday. It will be shown on “NBA Today” at 3 p.m. ET (Eastern Time).
