For the second straight year, the Celtics will be facing off with the Philadelphia 76ers on opening night (Oct. 23), but this time the showdown with Al Horford and his new team will be on the road. The ESPN-televised showdown kicks off the 82-game slate for Boston which was revealed on Monday afternoon.
Despite losing Kyrie Irving and Horford in free agency, the Celtics continue to be a top draw for the league in the eyes of TV executives as Boston will play 25 of their contests on national TV (ABC, ESPN, TNT). That’s just a two-game decrease from last season and the highest number of any team in the Eastern Conference.
The majority of the team’s high-profile matchups against former teammates will be nationally televised as the C’s face off with the Sixers (Oct. 23) and Nets (Nov. 27) early in the year. All of the showdowns with high profile West opponents will be on national TV as well as the Warriors (Nov. 15, Jan. 30), Lakers (Jan. 20, Feb. 23) and Clippers (Nov. 20, Feb. 13) get top billing.
BSJ Analysis
The Celtics will start one week later than this year like the rest of the league and will end up playing the same first three opponents (Phi, Tor, NYK) to start the year.
Like last year, the early season schedule out of the gate will not be forgiving. Philadelphia, Toronto and Milwaukee are all on the docket in the opening week while the Celtics play nine of their 14 games on the road in November. A .500 start in the first 20 games last year was a hole that Boston was never able to fully dig out of and Brad Stevens will have to work hard to avoid a similar fate this year for this group.
The Celtics will also play 12 back-to-backs this season, the same amount as last year. However, just one of those will come at the TD Garden, which will make Boston doing a lot of traveling on the second half of back-to-backs all year long.
A few other highlights from the schedule before our full breakdown here at BSJ:
- Games on New Year's Eve (@ Charlotte) and MLK day (vs. LA Lakers)
- 38 weekend games (18 Friday, 10 Saturday, 10 Sunday)
- Most games in a month: 16 (January)
- Fewest games in a full month: 12 (February)
- Longest homestand: Six games (March 27-Apr. 8)
- Longest road trip: Five games (Nov. 15-Nov. 22)
