NBA reveals portion of its early slate, Nets-Warriors and Lakers-Clippers on Opening Night

 

The NBA announced on Wednesday its national television schedule for the United States to kick off its 2020-21 season, doing so with highly-anticipated matchups on Opening Night and Christmas.

For Opening Night on December 22 (23 in Manila), the league will have the Golden State Warriors traveling to New York to play the Brooklyn Nets in the first half of the doubleheader, which will be Kevin Durant's first meeting with the Warriors since leaving the team in free agency to join the Nets ahead of the 2019-20 season.

The second half of the doubleheader features a matchup between two Staples Center tenants: freshly-minted champions the Los Angeles Lakers serving as the home team against the Los Angeles Clippers. The Lakers are expected to have a pre-game championship-related ceremony, even though fans will not be allowed inside Staples Center for the time being due to pandemic-related restrictions.

As for Christmas (December 26 in Manila), which is considered a red-letter-day for the basketball community, five games are on tap:

The first sees the New Orleans Pelicans travel to Miami to face the Heat, then followed by the Warriors visiting Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks. The Nets travel to Boston to face the Celtics in a matchup of top contenders in the Eastern Conference.

The remaining two matchups involve the Los Angeles teams. The Lakers will host Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks, while the Clippers travel to Denver to face the Nuggets, the team they lost to in the second round of the playoffs last season.

Aside from these two days, the NBA also revealed two games from its schedule for December 23 (24 in Manila). The Bucks will open its season against the Celtics, while the Mavericks will head to the desert to face Chris Paul and the Phoenix Suns.

The complete first half (until March 4, 2021) of the schedule will be revealed on Friday (Saturday in Manila).

Here is the confirmed schedule as mentioned:

As for local broadcast, the NBA and Cignal TV, will determine which matches will be shown on its channels, whether TV5, One Sports, or NBA TV Philippines.