The Portland Trail Blazers will open their 2024-25 regular season at home on Wednesday, Oct. 23 against Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors in the first of three home games at Moda Center.
The NBA released its season schedule on Thursday, and as far as Blazers fans are concerned, they will get to see their team at home at least 12 times before Christmas.
Other schedule highlights for the Blazers include:
- Back-to-back home games against Zion Williamson, CJ McCollum and the New Orleans Pelicans on Oct. 25 and Oct. 27.
- The first trip to the new Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif., on Oct. 30 to play the LA Clippers.
- The first of two trips to San Antonio to face Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs is Nov. 7 with the second meeting on Dec. 21. The Spurs don’t come to Portland until April 6.
- Portland will start the NBA Cup against Minnesota on Nov. 12 at the Moda Center. Next will be at Houston on Nov. 22, followed by home vs. Sacramento on Nov. 29 and conclude group play at the Clippers on Dec. 3. Those results will determined the next games for the Blazers on Dec. 10 or 11.
- The Blazers have four matchups against the Los Angeles Lakers. The first two are at Crypto.com Arena on Dec. 8 and Jan. 2. The Lakers come to the Moda Center on Feb. 20, and to conclude the regular season on April 13.
- The longest road trip of the season is seven games beginning on Feb. 24 at Utah. Then the Blazers travel to the East Coast to take on Washington (Feb. 26), Brooklyn (Feb. 28), Cleveland (March 2), Philadelphia (March 3), Boston (March 5), and then back west to Oklahoma City (March 7).
- The Blazers will face the defending NBA champion Celtics at home on March 23 in what is now a 3 p.m. tipoff.
- There are four games against NBA runner-up Dallas, three in December (Dec. 1, 23, 28) and the last on Jan. 9.
- Portland will face Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets four times beginning with a home game on Dec. 19. The next matchup is a back-to-back at Denver on Feb. 10 and 12. The final meeting is March 21 at Portland.
- Joel Embiid, Paul George and the Philadelphia 76ers are in Portland on Dec. 30.
- Portland is scheduled to be on TNT on Jan. 28 against Damian Lillard, Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks.
The Trail Blazers entire 2024-25 regular season schedule can be viewed online at trailblazers.com/schedule.
Blazers season ticket member presales will begin on Tuesday while single game tickets go on sale Friday, Aug. 23.
Boston will get its rings on Oct. 22
Game 1 on the national slate is the Celtics hosting the New York Knicks on opening night — the one where the NBA champions will get their rings and reveal their 18th championship banner.
The second game on opening night has Minnesota visiting the Los Angeles Lakers, a reunion of Olympic gold medalists with the Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards facing off with the Lakers’ LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
The league released 1,200 of the 1,230 games on the schedule Thursday; the other 30 will be slotted in December, depending on how teams fare during the NBA Cup.
Christmas Day games
San Antonio goes to New York to start the Christmas Day quintuple-header, followed by Minnesota at Dallas, Philadelphia at Boston, the Lakers at Golden State and Denver at Phoenix.
It’ll be the first Christmas game for the Spurs since 2016 and the first for the Timberwolves since 2017. Milwaukee won’t play a Christmas game for the first time in seven seasons.
All 30 teams playing
There are four nights this season where all 30 teams will be in action, starting with Nov. 4 — when a new game will start every 15 minutes from 4 p.m. through 7:30 p.m. PST.
The other dates when all teams are playing: Feb. 12, April 11 (the second-to-last day of the regular season) and April 13 (the last day of the regular season).
Election Day among off days
For the third consecutive year, Election Day — Nov. 5 this year — will not have any NBA games, with the league saying it wants to “continue to encourage fans and the broader NBA community to make a plan to vote and participate in the civic process. As part of this initiative, the NBA will share important resources from voting organizations and highlight the civic engagement work of teams in their markets.”
Other off days for the NBA this season: Nov. 28 (Thanksgiving), Dec. 24 (Christmas Eve), Feb. 17-19 (the break following All-Star weekend, which starts Feb. 14) and April 12. There will likely be one other dark day in December, depending on how the schedules are set for those teams that do not make the NBA Cup semifinals.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day slate
There are seven games on Jan. 20 as part of the league’s annual celebration of the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: Dallas at Charlotte, Detroit at Houston, Minnesota at Memphis, Atlanta at New York, Phoenix at Cleveland, Boston at Golden State and Utah at New Orleans.
Memphis, where King was assassinated in 1968, will host a game on the holiday for the 22nd time in the last 23 seasons.
Intuit Dome opener
The first official game inside the Clippers’ Intuit Dome is Oct. 23 when they take on the Phoenix Suns.
The Clippers have shared an arena with the Los Angeles Lakers since the 1999-2000 season.
Super Bowl Sunday
Once again, the NBA will be done for the day long before kickoff of the Super Bowl.
There are three games on Feb. 9, the day of the NFL’s title game: Charlotte at Detroit at 10 a.m. (PST), Toronto at Houston at 11 a.m. and Philadelphia at Milwaukee at 11 a.m.
Kickoff time for the Super Bowl is typically around 3:30 p.m.
Finals rematches
Boston goes to Dallas on Jan. 25 in the first rematch this season of last season’s NBA Finals. Dallas goes to Boston on Feb. 6.
No. 1 faces No. 1
The two games between the teams with the most recent No. 1 draft picks — Wembanyama from San Antonio and Zaccharie Risacher from Atlanta — will be nationally televised. The games will be Dec. 19 in San Antonio on TNT, then Feb. 5 in Atlanta on ESPN.
Both players are natives of France.
NCAA title game day
It’s been an unofficial tradition that the day of the NCAA men’s basketball championship game is an off day in the NBA. That won’t be the case this year, with Sacramento playing at Detroit and Philadelphia at Miami on April 7.
The men’s Final Four this year is in San Antonio; the Spurs won’t be going. They’ll play host to Cleveland on April 4, the day before the national semifinals, then head out on a road trip.
The last day
All 30 teams will play on the final day of the season, April 13 — with every game set to start at either 10 a.m. or 12:30 p.m. PDT.
Every team will take on an opponent from its own conference, except Toronto and San Antonio. The Raptors will visit the Spurs.
NBA Finals lookahead
Game 1 of the NBA Finals will be June 5.
That means — if the schedule is shaped as it has been in recent years — Game 2 is likely on June 8, Game 3 would be June 11, Game 4 on June 13, Game 5 on June 16, Game 6 on June 19 and Game 7, if necessary, on June 22.
