Two of the biggest days of the year in the NBA regular season are opening night and Christmas Day, and Friday we learned the matchups we will see on both nights, courtesy of ESPN’s Shams Charania.
Opening night schedule
The NBA will send the new-look Rockets, featuring Kevin Durant, to Oklahoma City for ring night to open the season on October 21, and then finish the night off with one more opening night tilt between LeBron James and Stephen Curry.
All four of those teams will also participate in the Christmas Day festivities, along with six other teams that get the honor of playing on the NBA’s biggest day.
Christmas Day schedule
The Knicks and Cavs matchup (presumably in the noon ET timeslot the Knicks host annually) will be the only game featuring Eastern Conference teams. That’s not a shock given the injuries to top teams in the East, but is a representation of how tilted the balance of power is — at least on paper — for the 2025-26 season.
Kevin Durant not expected to get contract extension offer ‘close to the max’ from Rockets, per report
Robby Kalland
Victor Wembanyama once again gets a Christmas Day slot, this year against the reigning champs in OKC, while the Rockets will visit the Lakers. Cooper Flagg, Anthony Davis and the Mavs will head to the Bay to face Golden State, and Anthony Edwards and Nikola Jokic will face off in Denver in what figures to be the nightcap.
The biggest absence from the Christmas schedule is Boston, as the Celtics have played on Christmas Day every year since 2016, but were dropped this year with Jayson Tatum’s Achilles injury costing him next season and after trading away Jrue Holiday and Kristaps…
..
