Warriors in dozens of prime TV games
Have early chance to rack up wins, tough road finish to season
The Golden State Warriors’ full 2021-22 schedule released Friday is filled with marquee matchups as the NBA aims to highlight Steph Curry and the Warriors’ attempt to climb back into contention thanks to Klay Thompson’s return from injury.
Premier games include Saturday night national games on ABC against the 76ers (Dec. 11), Nets (Jan. 29), Lakers (Feb. 12, March 5) and defending champion Bucks (March 12). The Brooklyn game will be Kevin Durant’s first game back in front of Warriors fans since his 2019 exit.
They play a whopping 29 national TV games on ABC, TNT and ESPN, topping 25 national games for the seventh straight year.
The list of prime-time games includes nine of their 22 games after the All-Star break in February, signifying that the NBA, like Warriors fans, expects Golden State to be in the thick of the playoff race at that time. With Thompson expected to return to the lineup from his Achilles tear midway through the season, that seems to be a good bet.
Golden State will also appear nationally on NBA TV 12 times for a total of 41 games for a national audience — exactly half of the season.
After the previously announced Opening Night showdown at the Lakers and home opener against the Clippers, the Warriors will face a string of young teams — from LaMelo Ball’s Hornets to Zion Williamson’s Pelicans and Trae Young’s Hawks — prior to a Nov. 16 showdown with Kevin Durant’s Nets in Brooklyn.
Those games come during the Warriors’ eightgame homestand, which opens Oct. 28 with a play-in game rematch against the Grizzlies and Ja Morant. Nine of their first 12 games will be at Chase Center.
The Warriors’ first of two five-game road trips comes in mid-December, starting with that Saturday night date in Philadelphia and finishing in Toronto a week later.
The other five-game East Coast swing comes late in the season, starting in Orlando on March 22 and ending March 28 in Memphis.
Each long trip features two instances of back-toback game nights. In total, the Warriors have 14 back-to-back sets throughout the season. They’ll also play home-and-home series twice, against the Suns (Nov. 30 and Dec. 3) and Nuggets (Dec. 28 and 30).
They also play the Lakers and Clippers back-toback a surprising three times (Oct. 19-21, Feb. 1214, March 5-8), but each of those sets involves games at both Chase Center and Staples Center.
The second long trip kicks off a finishing stretch in which Golden State will play eight of its final 11 games on the road. The season’s final weekend features a Saturday game at San Antonio and a Sunday game in New Orleans, neither of which has a scheduled tip-off time yet.
Beyond the Christmas game in Phoenix and the late-February date with the Mavericks, there is just one other scheduled day game: Nov. 28 at the Clippers, with a 12:30 tip-off time.
All weekday home games will tip off at 7 p.m., and all weekend home games will start at 5:30 except for one 4:30 home game vs. Dallas on Sunday, Feb. 27 that’ll be shown on ESPN.