Grizzlies’ home schedule includes 2 games vs LeBron
For the Memphis Grizzlies, the 201819 season begins on the road Oct. 17 against Tyreke Evans and the Indiana Pacers.
It’s part of a tricky early stretch that sees the Grizzlies play three of their first four games away from FedExForum. The home opener is Oct. 19 against the Atlanta Hawks, who traded for No. 5 pick Trae Young. Interestingly enough, the next home game is against top pick DeAndre Ayton and the Phoenix Suns, and before that there is a road game against Marvin Bagley and the Kings. That means No. 4 overall pick Jaren Jackson Jr. of the Grizzlies will face three other top-five picks in his first five games.
Former Grizzlies coach David Fizdale returns to Memphis for the only time on Nov. 25 in what may turn out to be a feisty affair to close out the Thanksgiving weekend. Fizdale was fired almost exactly a year prior, losing his job on Nov. 28, 2017.
The traditional Martin Luther King Jr. game will be played again in Memphis, with MVP candidate Anthony Davis and the New Orleans Pelicans heading to FedExForum on Jan. 21. The game will air on TNT and tip off at 4:30 p.m. The Grizzlies have hosted the Martin Luther King Jr. Day game on the holiday every year since 2002, with only one exception two seasons ago. The MLK Day game begins the longest homestand of the season for the Grizzlies, with Memphis hosting five straight games be-
tween Jan. 21-28.
LeBron James and his new team, the Los Angeles Lakers, will travel to Memphis twice this year, on Dec. 8 and Feb. 25. Because this is the first time James will play for a Western Conference team, it’s also the first time that Grizzlies fans could see him twice in one season. The defending champion Golden State Warriors won’t be in Memphis until very late in the season, with both appearances happening in the last two weeks of the year (March 27 and the season finale, April 10).
Over a quarter of the Grizzlies’ games will occur on Wednesday nights; only three times all season will the team have a Wednesday off. They’ve got 16 Friday night games and 15 on Saturday, with 15 of those 31 total games coming at FedExForum. The Grizzlies get a little respite from the league office as well, with just 13 back-to-back games this season, down from 16 and 17 in the last two seasons.
Though all 82 Grizzlies regular-season games will be aired locally on Fox Sports Southeast, there is no Grizzlies game scheduled to be televised by ESPN or ABC. The MLK Day game is the only one scheduled to be nationally televised at this time, though those schedules can and do often change as the season progresses.