The NBA released its 2026-27 regular-season schedule Thursday, confirming dates for a Finals rematch on Christmas Day and a series of homecomings involving some of the biggest names to change teams this offseason.<\/p>\n
The defending champion New York Knicks will \u200bhost the San Antonio Spurs on Dec. 25 in their first meeting since New \u200cYork won last season\u2019s NBA Finals. The teams will meet again March 7 in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
Their noon ET matchup opens the traditional five-game Christmas slate. Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Miami Heat visit the Boston Celtics at 2:30 p.m., followed by the Philadelphia 76ers visiting the Los Angeles Lakers at 5 p.m. in LeBron James\u2019 \u200cfirst game \u200bback in Los Angeles since joining Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
The Oklahoma City Thunder \u2060visit the Minnesota Timberwolves at \u20608 p.m. before the Denver Nuggets and Golden State Warriors close the day at 10:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
Jaylen Brown will return to Boston when the 76ers visit the Celtics on Jan. 21, bringing the former NBA Finals MVP back to TD Garden after he was traded \u200bto Philadelphia in the offseason. The Sixers will host Boston on Nov. 10, giving Brown his first chance to face the team he spent his first 10 NBA seasons with.<\/p>\n
Antetokounmpo will \u2060make another significant return Jan. 28, when Miami visits \u2060Milwaukee. The two-time MVP spent his first 13 seasons with the \u200bBucks and led the franchise to the 2021 NBA championship before being traded to the Heat this \u200bsummer.<\/p>\n
Other familiar faces will also make trips back to their former homes. \u200cPortland Trail Blazers guard Ja Morant returns to Memphis on Feb. 6 after being traded by the Grizzlies, while Minnesota\u2019s LaMelo Ball visits Charlotte on Feb. 15.<\/p>\n
Opening night on Oct. 20 features another marquee collection of games. Boston visits Detroit before the Knicks raise their championship banner against \u2060the revamped 76ers, as James and Brown make their Philadelphia debuts. San Antonio then hosts Oklahoma City in a rematch of last season\u2019s Western Conference Finals.<\/p>\n
The following night features Antetokounmpo\u2019s Heat debut against \u2060Ball and the Timberwolves.<\/p>\n
On Feb. \u200c5, the Indiana Pacers visit Oklahoma City in a rematch of \u2060the entertaining 2025 NBA Finals. Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton tore his \u200bAchilles in \u200cGame 7 in Oklahoma City and missed all of last season. \u200bHe\u2019s healthy now.<\/p>\n
The \u2060league also set Feb. 27 for the first regular-season meeting between the top two picks in the 2026 draft, with No. 1 AJ Dybantsa and Washington visiting No. 2 Darryn Peterson and Utah.<\/p>\n
Each team received dates for 80 of its 82 games. The remaining two will be determined by the results of NBA Cup group play, with those games filling the Dec. 4-10 portion of \u200bthe schedule.<\/p>\n
\u2013Field Level Media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA released its 2026-27 regular-season schedule Thursday, confirming dates for a Finals rematch on Christmas Day and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3782],"tags":[7,307,152,3954,6,308],"class_list":["post-811044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-basketball","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-minnesotatimberwolves","tag-nba","tag-timberwolves"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117090523788415664","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}