NBA shares high points of 2018-19 TV schedule

NBA fans will get a smorgasbord of LeBron James in a Los Angeles Lakers uniform, the reigning champion Golden State Warriors, the star power of the Houston Rockets and the up-and-coming Boston Celtics as part of the league’s television schedule.

On Wednesday, the NBA released its TV schedule for the first week of the 2018-19 season, as well as Christmas Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and all of the aforementioned are prominently featured.

Reigning league MVP James Harden and the Rockets will appear three times on national television in the opening week of the season, while the Lakers, the Warriors and the Celtics will be featured twice.

The highlight of the coveted Christmas Day games is James facing a familiar foe — Stephen Curry and the Warriors — for a fourth straight year, only this time James will be wearing gold and purple rather than the familiar wine and gold of the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Warriors, who added center DeMarcus Cousins in the offseason, now boast a starting lineup full of players who were All-Stars in 2017-18.

The other Christmas Day games include point guard Kyrie Irving and the Celtics hosting the young yet talented Philadelphia 76ers. The Rockets, who came within a game of knocking off the Warriors in the Western Conference finals last season, will host Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder, while Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks will face the Knicks in New York.