The NBA’s entire slate for the 2022-23 season is set to be revealed later on Wednesday.
Everyone will finally know when opening night for their favorite team is. And we’ll all get to go through the exercise of chalking up the wins and losses on the calendar month by month.
But there are some things we already actually know about the league’s overall schedule so far.
For example, we know who is playing on Christmas. We also know who is opening the season so far, too. Quite a bit has already been revealed.
So, ahead of the bigger drop, we figured we’d drop all of that information in one place for you.
Enjoy.
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The Christmas Day schedule
We know exactly what the NBA’s Christmas Day slate will look like. We’ve even taken the time to actually rank them for you.
A quick rundown:
- Knicks vs. 76ers
- Celtics vs. Bucks
- Warriors vs. Grizzlies
- Mavericks vs. Lakers
- Nuggets vs. Suns
That’s a pretty great lineup featuring a lot of the NBA’s stars. You start with the obligatory ratings grab with a Knicks vs. (insert superstar here) game, then you’ve got the Bucks and Celtics rivalry, then the Warriors and Griz pettiness.
You close out the night with two of the league’s biggest stars going at it in LeBron James and Luka Doncic and finish off with the best regular season player over the last two years in Nikola Jokic against the best regular season team in the Suns.
We’re going to be spoiled on Christmas Day, y’all.
The opening night matchups
We also know the opening night matchups. We’re renewing rivalries here with these games. We’ve got:
- Celtics vs. 76ers
- Warriors vs. Lakers
First, we get an old-school rivalry between the Celtics and 76ers. A superstar and an MVP caliber player in Joel Embiid takes on what might be the best team in the league this season with the Celtics.
And then we go to the west coast where Bron and Steph Curry reignite their rivalry, too. Should be fun.
Martin Luther King Day games
We already know the entire league is playing this day, but we’ve also got two marquee games featuring staples in the Atlanta Hawks and Memphis Grizzlies.
The two highlighted games:
- Hawks vs. Heat
- Suns vs. Grizzlies
We’ll see Trae Young get a chance to exact a little revenge on the Heat for locking him up in the first round of the playoffs last season. Plus, we get Ja Morant vs. the Suns.
Again, should be loads of fun.
The Celtics and Warriors rematch dates
We also know the dates we’ll get to see our NBA Finals rematch. It’s far from written in stone that these two will meet each other in the playoffs again — they may not even win their conferences.
But we know we’ll see them both playing one another on December 10 in Golden State and on January 19 in Boston, per The Athletic’s Shams Charania.
Golden State-Boston NBA Finals rematch dates for the 2022-23 season, per sources:
Dec. 10 in Golden State
Jan. 19 in Boston— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) August 16, 2022
Buckle in, y’all.
No games on election day
Last but not least, we know there won’t actually be any games played on election day across the league.
Instead, every team will play the night before on a themed “civic engagement night,” per NBC’s Shaquille Brewster. They’ll encourage everyone to vote in this year’s midterm elections and give them time to actually do it the next day.
SCOOP: The 2022 @NBA schedule will show NO Election Day games.
Instead, all 30 teams will play the Monday before on a themed “civic engagement night,” to encourage fans, players and staff to vote in this year’s midterm elections.
(More on @NBCNews)
— Shaquille Brewster (@shaqbrewster) August 16, 2022
Very thoughtful stuff there.
