Warriors have 31 national TV games in 2017-18
Last week, the NBA announced the national television schedule for opening week and Christmas Day.
On Monday, the league champion Warriors found out about the other 79 games on their 2017-18 schedule. A total of 31 of the 82 regular-season games will be nationally televised, a franchise record.
Among the highlights revealed Monday is the Martin Luther King Jr. Day game at Cleveland on Jan. 15 (5 p.m. on TNT).
Three games were announced last week.
The Warriors’ season opener will be on Oct. 17 against the Houston Rockets at Oracle Arena on TNT. It will be the Rockets debut of Chris Paul, who engineered an offseason trade to Houston from the Los Angeles Clippers. The night will include the ring ceremony and the raising of the championship banner.
The Warriors will make a second national TV appearance in the opening week when they travel to New Orleans for an ESPN game on Oct. 20. The Warriors also will be featured on Christmas Day when they play host to the Cavaliers on ABC.
The season’s starting date is the earliest in the NBA since Oct. 10, 1980, as the league stretched out the schedule to avoid too many back-to-back games. As a result, the Warriors will play 14 sets of back-to-backs, down from 17 last season, and no team will play four games in five nights.
The league hopes that the longer schedule will give coaches less reason to rest players during the season.
Other highlights of the Warriors’ schedule include Kevin Durant’s Thanksgiving Eve trip back to Oklahoma City to face the Thunder and NBA MVP Russell Westbrook and new addition Paul George (Nov. 22, 5 p.m. ESPN).
Minnesota, projected as a playoff team after acquiring Jimmy Butler, Jeff Teague and Taj Gibson, visit Oracle Arena on Nov. 8 (7:30 p.m. ESPN).
The Los Angeles Lakers, with rookie Lonzo Ball and former Stanford star Brook Lopez, come to Oracle on Dec. 22 (7:30 p.m. ESPN). That is the second game of a season-long seven-game homestand. Their longest trip is a six-gamer over 11 days in late November to early December.