As we inch closer to the start of the NBA season, the leagues is beginning to unveil its schedule and major games of note. Today they released the Christmas Day matchups, Opening week nationally televised games, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day games There are a few major takeaways to be had from each one of them, however I believe opening week and Christmas day have the most interesting slate of games simply because the season will be new and we will be able to learn so much from these games. So, without further ado, let's breakdown the most important games from the 2018-2019 Opening Week reveal.
There are 5 games that really stand out during opening week of the NBA season:
The first is night one when the Sixers face off against the Celtics in Boston. The last time these two teams faced, the Celtics handily eliminated the Sixers out of the playoffs and a young team that seems to have limitless potential by most major media outlets weeks before, was suddenly humbled before us all. It will be interesting to see if the Sixers can come out and make a major statement win against a Celtics team that will finally have all of its stars healthy. Will Ben Simmons shoot threes? How will Joel Embiid have improved? Will Markelle Fultz be starting the starting point guard and have fixed his jumpshot? These are all exciting questions I can't wait to have answered by the Sixers in game one.
There are some questions that are just as interesting for Boston as well, which is why this game is compelling. We finally get to see Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving together again, healthy playing basketball! A team that was only completely healthy for a half a quarter last season will finally be back on the court playing together. Jason Tatum will also have made major leaps from last season, as well as adding rookie Robert Williams will add to Boston's depth, which can be both a blessing and a curse for coach Brad Stevens. I will be watching closely to see how he manages his players' rotations in this first game. They had so many players play and develop really well last season because of injury depletion, I am curious to see if these players will be satisfied with limited minutes and reduced roles. For example, Jaylen Brown and Terry Rozier were both playing at the end of Game 7 of the NBA Eastern Conference finals last year! I know that these players will say that they will do whatever it takes to help the team, but I am interested to see if when push comes to shove and one of them is on the bench to finish the game, will they really be happy with that? This game is also potentially a preview of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals so it'll be exciting to see what strides these teams make throughout the year so we can compare this opening night game with how they are playing in the playoffs.
The next game I am interested in is night two when the Mavericks play in Phoenix against the Suns. This game will feature two of the most highly anticipated players from the most recent draft, Luke Doncic (Mavericks) and Deandre Ayton (Suns). While it is unlikely, these two players will go directly head to head (unless there is a switch or a pickup in transition by one of them) it will be exciting to see how these two teams utilize these rookies. How much of the offense and scoring will rest of Ayton, while Devin Booker is still on the team. It'll once again be a major burden on him to create his own shots and shots for his team if Ayton can't step up quickly and help him.
As for Dallas, I will be curious how Doncic and Dennis Smith Jr. mix. Assuming these two start together in the back court, I will be curious to see who is controlling the ball. Can the Mavericks let Doncic handle the ball and have Smith play off of him. Smith was only a 31.3% shooter from deep last season so he will have to improve his jumper if they want to provide spacing for Doncic to make plays. Also, since Doncic did not play at all in Summer League so I will be curious to see how his game translates to the NBA from overseas. This question will be answered much better throughout the season, but this first game could give us some real indications about where his struggles and strengths may lie within the NBA game. Finally, it's always fun to watch Dirk Nowitzki play because his game is so smooth and is shot is so beautiful. With this potentially being one of his last seasons, we need to value him and appreciate him for as long as we can.
The next game I am interested in is technically two games...and they both involve the Lakers; for obvious reasons I'd say. The first game is Thursday night in Portland where we will finally see Lebron James in a Lakers' uniform in the regular season. The next one is Saturday night when the Rockets come to L.A. and we see Lebron debut at home against a team that is considered a contender for the NBA title. But, before we get to Saturday, lets start with Thursday night.
Besides seeing Lebron for the first time in a Lakers' uniform, there are numerous other story lines to be fascinated with when it comes to the Lakers. First, how will the young core from last season have developed? Will Lonzo Ball have a better jumpshot? Will Brandon Ingram take a step forward in his development as a young player? This will be a major year for Ingram, as this could potentially be a make or break year for him and his role within the Lakers' organization. Many people in their front office, including Rob Pelinka and Magic Johnson are high on him, which was evident since they didn't trade him for Kawhi Leonard when they had the chance to this summer. However, their opinion could change if there aren't noticeable strides within his game this year. He showed flashes last year when he scored a career high 32 points against the Warriors. He also scored more that 20 points 16 times last year showing that he can put up points, it is just simply a matter of consistency at this point. Next, I want to see how all of these new free agent acquisitions fit together. The players that the Lakers got after they signed Lebron were questionable to say the least, but Magic Johnson insisted that they had a strategy when it came to who they signed. He said they wanted play makers and shot-creators so that Lebron wouldn't be forced to do everything on the team. There are a couple problems with how they went about doing this though which I will not get into now. This will be broken down in another piece in the future. Night one, I mainly want to see how all of these pieces fit together and play with Lebron.
As for Portland, they will be interesting to see as well. After being swept by the Pelicans, handily might I add, in last years playoffs, the Trailblazers should be back to prove something to the world. However, they didn't really get much better in the offseason. They drafted Anfernee Simons, an athletic shooter which is good in a vacuum, but when you already have two shot creators that are the center of your team, it may be tough to find him the minutes and opportunities he needs in order to grow. Besides their draft pick, they hadn't done much else this offseason. There were rumors that they may send Damian Lillard to L.A. (or even Cleveland as far back as last trade deadline), but those rumors do seem to have subsided for the time being. This in many ways, will be a make or break season for the Blazers as they will have to decide whether they want to move forward with both Lillard and McCollum or trade one of those contracts to free up some cap space since they owe over $176 million between the two over the next three years (~$57 million per year). They are handcuffed by major salary cap spending which, unless they unload some of those major contracts will inhibit them to add some more pieces in the next year or so. Night one between the Lakers and Blazers will create some interesting drama and compelling story lines for us to think about because wherever Lebron goes, drama is soon to follow.
When the Rockets come to L.A., it'll be a major test for the Lakers to see if they are on par with some of the best teams in the west. The Lakers played the Rockets pretty well last season without Lebron, so it will exciting to see if they can do so again this season. The Rockets are coming off of an offseason where they lost two defensive wings in Trevor Ariza and Luc MBah a Moute so they could take a step back this season which will hurt them against the Warriors, but maybe it will not matter against the rest of the west. The most interesting addition the Rockets will have is Carmelo Anthony who, by all accounts, had the worst season of his career last year. Carmelo can fit in well with the Rockets offense as a good catch and shoot player, but he will have to set his ego aside and realize that he is the third, maybe even the fourth option for the Rockets on offense at times. His record would indicate that he can play off of other players well. We have seen this, not only in the Olympics, but last season where of the 40.6% of his shots that he took, which were threes, 87.6% of those that he made were assisted. Even though he only shot 36% from three, he at least showed that he can play off the ball well which is crucial if he wants to succeed in a Mike D'Antoni offense. Also another wrinkle in all this! He is being reunited with his old coach that he ran out of New York!The only difference is this time D'Antoni has all the power and the team on his side. Maybe D'Antoni will take out the ultimate form of revenge against Melo and not play him at the end of close games. I guess the only way to find out is to watch!
The fifth most important game on the Opening Week slate is Boston versus Toronto. That being said, this game is only interesting if Kawhi Leonard plays for the Raptors. If he doesn't, then Toronto will be very interesting for an entirely different reason. Thus, that is all I have to say about this game. If Kawhi plays it will be great! If not, expect the superior Celtics team to trounce all over them. I guess the Raptors having a new coach in Nick Nurse is cool too...
Christmas Day! Basketball all day is the reason why this holiday is the best one of the year! Also spending time with family is great too I guess. Let's quickly run through these games because each are interesting in their own ways. However, some are much better than others. First note, before we begin though. Which teams got snubbed from playing on Christmas day? I'd say that the Raptors and Timberwolves certainly did. I'm sure there will also be another surprise team this year that will feel like they should be playing, but it is certainly hard to argue with all of the good games we have already.
Game 1: Bucks vs Knicks in the Garden. This game is probably the least interesting of all the games on Christmas because the Knicks are expected to be without Kristaps Porzingis all season long essentially putting a major halt on their playoff hopes. Their only hope for this game is that Kevin Knox is just as good now as he was in Summer League. Besides that, I don't think there will be too many compelling Knick's storylines for us to be following going into this game.
The Bucks on the other hand will be interesting because, by Christmas, they will be about half way through the season with their new coach Mike Budenholzer. This storyline will only be interesting though if they are either struggling or playing well above expectations which I believe they could be because of being in a weak Eastern Conference. Even if the game itself isn't close, we can always hope that Giannis does something like this.
Game 2: Thunder at Rockets. Will the Rockets be as good at this point as they were last year? There was stretch for a while last season where the Rockets had not yet lost with both Chris Paul and James Harden on the floor at the same time (although they had both missed time individually when the Rockets did lose). I am curious to see how much energy they come out of the gate with and does this continue into Christmas.
The Thunder will be a much better team than they were last year at this point. The most interesting thing to focus on for them at this point will be: is Russell Westbrook averaging a triple double again and are the Thunder a better team defensively now that they have Roberson healthy again? The Thunder on paper match up well with Houston from Roberson/George guarding Harden to Westbrook on Paul. Obviously, switching is a major part of today's NBA so whoever each defender matches up with can frequently change throughout a possession because of head hunting bad defensive players, but having multiple big, switchable bodies is what Oklahoma City seem to present defensively. This game could also be a playoff series preview which is always exciting to see in the regular season.
Game 3: Celtics and Sixers. Game one night again, except the venues are reversed. We also may see this matchup another time before this (excluding opening night) since these teams play in the same division. Hopefully this game just creates more bad blood and further builds the rivalry between these two teams.
Game 4: Lakers and Warriors. What will the Lakers' record be at this point? As mentioned before, they have a unique core of rag tag players who could have problems mixing as a locker room. Will the Lakers have ironed out their early season wrinkles by now, or will they continue to struggle through this game? For Golden State, will Demarcus Cousins be healthy so we can see him fit into the Warriors offense, and will the Warriors even care about this game? This may end up being a reoccurring theme for them throughout this season. It is incredibly difficult for any team to three-peat in any sport because of the grind of the regular season and then the intensity of the postseason. Seeing what kind of shape the Warriors are in as a team will be interesting to see. Also the Warriors are the best team in the NBA so what you get on Christmas is to see the best teams play. Can't complain about that.
Game 5: Trailblazers at Jazz. For many people, this will probably be one of the few times they actually see Utah play all year so it'll be a great chance for Donovan Mitchell to remind us why he was one of the best rookies last year. I am interested to see how he improves his game and, now that he will have full reign of the offense, how he looks conducting it.
For Portland, I wonder if trade rumors about Lillard will heat up again and if that ends up being a major storyline heading into this game. Overall, this game has some incredible young talent in it and has a chance to be the best game of the day because Utah always has a loud crowd and a packed building.
Well those are the most interesting games to me from what has been revealed so far by the NBA. Obliviously a lot can change between now and Christmas and even now and Tip-Off, but wherever there is basketball I will be watching. The critique of the NBA often is that we know the outcome of the Finals before the games even start. Yes, The Warriors are the best team in the NBA, but we have no idea how the East will end up, every single team in the West has improved, and there are bound to be countless other surprises we don't see coming. People often forget that a season is about journey as much as it is about the destination. The Warriors were one game away from not returning to the Finals last year. If not for Chris Paul injury, perhaps they would have lost. Things can change and surprises happen all the time. That's why sports are so great! So enjoy these great games and enjoy the players in front of you. Also when the time comes, Happy Opening Night and Merry Christmas!