Warriors:
The champs’ 2015-16 schedule features 25 national TV games, including a Christmas Day rematch against LeBron James and the Cavaliers.
The NBA apparently liked what it saw from the Warriors in the postseason.
The league released its schedule Wednesday and it has Golden State playing a franchise-record 25 national TV games in a title-defending season that opens with four games against the three teams the Warriors met in the Western Conference playoffs.
And on Christmas Day, the defending NBA champions will host LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, the team they beat in six game in the Finals in June.
In addition, the Warriors’ only regular-season trip to Cleveland — site of their title-clinching win — is Jan. 18 and will be the featured game in the league’s Martin Luther King Day schedule.
Golden State is scheduled to play five times on ABC, 10 on TNT and 10 on ESPN. Three of the national games will be part of the NBA’s new “Saturday Night on ABC” series: Feb. 20 (Clippers), Feb. 27 (Thunder) and March 19 (Spurs).
The season opens Oct. 27 with a home game against New Orleans, which was swept by the Warriors in the first round last spring. Golden State will receive its
championship rings prior to the game.
The first of a team-record 20 back-to-back sets then has Golden State traveling to play Houston (which it beat in five games in the Western Conference finals) and the Pelicans again. Returning home Nov. 2, the Warriors play Memphis, which won Games 2 and 3 in the second round only to have Golden State take the next three to advance.
In leading the Warriors to the championship, MVP Stephen Curry became the first player in league history to beat the other four members of the first All-NBA team in the postseason: New Orleans center/forward Anthony Davis, Memphis center Marc Gasol, Houston guard James Harden and Cleveland’s James.
This will be the third consecutive season in which the Warriors have played on Christmas (the last two were against the Pacific Division-rival Clippers). The 2 p.m. game will be the fourth in a five-game homestand for Golden State. It will play at Houston on New Year’s Eve.
On their way to a franchise-record (and leaguebest) 67-15 record, the Warriors got off to a 21-2 start last season that included a franchise-record 16-game winning streak. Golden State finished 39-2 at home (28-13 on the road) and did not lose as many as three consecutive games all season (including the playoffs).
The most demanding part of the 2015-16 schedule begins at the end of January. The Warriors play only two home games in February and a 12-game stretch sandwiched around the Feb. 14 All-Star Game in Toronto includes 10 road games.
The counterweight to that comes in the season’s final six weeks when they play 15 of their final 21 games at Oracle Arena. The regular season ends April 13 in Oakland against Memphis.
David Lee, who played for the Warriors for five seasons and who in 2013 became the team’s first All-Star since 1997, is scheduled to return to Oakland on April 1 when he and his new Boston Celtics teammates make their only visit of the season.