NBA basketball is approaching closer than it might seem. As the final holdouts from free agency have agreed to deals, we’re only about a month out from Media Day and the start of training camp. With the full 82-game schedule plus NBA Cup groupings having been released, now’s a good a time as any to break it down into segments and evaluate each part of the Sixers‘ upcoming journey.
These segments have been broken down into approximately 20 games to look at the season quarter-by-quarter. It’s important to remember that 82 games is a slog, with stretches of it that are more often defined by how the team itself is doing rather than their opponents — especially one with as many new moving parts as this Sixers roster.
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Still, it’s time to go through section by section of the Sixers season and see what they’re up against. The first portion will be broken down to the first 21 games of the season, taking us right up to Thanksgiving, mainly because games 20 and 21 are a back-to-back.
The Sixers will play the minimum 14 back-to-backs this season and will have four of them in this first quarter of the season. The other thing that jumps out about the first quarter of the season is how Eastern Conference-heavy it is. Only two of the Sixers’ first 21 opponents play in the West: the Houston Rockets and Portland Trail Blazers.
The schedule will probably always lean that heavy with NBA Cup group games taking place in this part of the season. The Sixers will kick off group play this year on Oct. 30 at home against the New York Knicks, their second game against the reigning champions in the first 10 days of the season.
They’ll obviously start the season taking on the Knicks at Madison Square Garden before hosting the Cleveland Cavaliers for the home opener. Their first weekend of the season brings their first back-to-back, hosting the Milwaukee Bucks then the Detroit Pistons. Assuming health, it will be interesting to see how the Sixers attack back-to-backs with their older stars. One would imagine Joel Embiid and LeBron James won’t be playing both legs of them, and the Bucks-Pistons combo will be a first look at if the Sixers stagger guys between nights, or just go for it all on one night.
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That back-to-back is conveniently two home games, but the other three in this early part of the schedule will require travel. After the Sixers host the Knicks they’ll shoot down to Charlotte to take on the Hornets. After the Indiana Pacers come to town on Nov. 15 the Sixers will take a train or bus up to Brooklyn to take on the Nets on the 16th. After their final game of Cup group play on Nov. 27, the Sixers will head to Houston for the 28th as they’ll finally start to face some Western Conference opponents.
A theme you might have noticed is that the Sixers won’t just be playing a lot of Eastern Conference teams early, but they’ll be seeing some of them multiple times early in the season. This was the case last year as well as they played the Celtics three times within the first month of the season. This year, they’ll see the Pacers three times before the month of December, while having played the Knicks, Cavs, Pistons and Bulls twice.
Three of those teams — the Cavs, Knicks and Pacers — are in the Sixers Cup group as well as the Miami Heat. That’s a strong group that doesn’t present any obvious weak link. It’s very possible that a team that just added Giannis Antetokounmpo or won the East 14 months ago is the worst team in this group. The Sixers haven’t had any NBA Cup success in its short history and this will be a tough year for their new-look group to break that trend.
Two more games to keep an eye on this early in the year will be Nov, 10 and 12 against the Boston Celtics and Toronto Raptors. While it’s a home game, this will be Jaylen Brown‘s first game against his old team and, unsurprisingly, will be nationally televised. The interest in that second game is still pending a league investigation, but the Raptors could be an interestingly scary team.
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This first stretch of the season will be a good litmus test for how much better and deeper this Eastern Conference is. Only six of their opponents in this stretch didn’t make the playoffs last year, and at least two of them in the Heat and Pacers will be trying to change that this season.
It’s one of the Sixers’ lightest stretches of the season in terms of travel with Houston and Chicago as the two furthest opponents, but the four back-to-backs are the tied for the most in any quarter segment of the season. To start the season the Sixers will find out just how good their conference is.
10/20: @Knicks
10/22: vs. Cavs
10/24: vs. Bucks
10/25: vs. Pistons (B2B)
10/28: @Pacers
10/30: vs. Knicks (Cup)
10/31: @Hornets (B2B)
11/2: vs. Bulls
11/4: @Pistons
11/6: @Cavs (Cup)
11/8: @Bulls
11/10: vs. Celtics
11/12: vs. Raptors
11/15: vs. Pacers
11/16: @Nets (B2B)
11/18: @Magic
11/21: vs. Bucks
11/23: vs. Trail Blazers
11/25: vs. Heat (Cup)
11/27: @Pacers (Cup)
11/28: @Rockets (B2B)
