The NBA always tips a new season off with a pair of marquee matchups to pique fans’ excitement and anticipation for the new year of basketball. Last season, it was the Cavs and Celtics that began the season followed by the Warriors and Rockets, accurately predicting all four conference finalists.
This season will open on October 16 and will feature familiar faces and the league seems to be pinpointing potential conference finals matchups once again for the opener. Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe reported on Wednesday that there is “a good chance” the NBA tabs Celtics-Sixers and Warriors-Thunder for the opening night festivities on TNT.
Hearing there's a good chance TNT season-opening slate will be #Sixers–#Celtics and #Thunder–#Warriors on Oct. 16
— gary washburn (@GwashburnGlobe) August 1, 2018
Those would be two strong matchups and are two of the most likely conference finals outcomes. Both belong high on the list of hopeful opening night games, and if this report holds true, no one will be disappointed with that slate to start the new season. That said, we wanted to highlight five other matchups that would be high on our list for opening night games, understanding that many of these will likely be held until Christmas Day, as the league often likes to use Christmas for its more emotional high profile games.
Warriors vs. Rockets: This one is the most obvious one, and if the league was trying to figure out which Western Conference matchup to go with on opening night it likely came down to the Rockets or Thunder as the Warriors opponents. A rematch of the conference finals from a year ago would’ve been a great way to start the year, as Houston has plenty of reason to believe it has a very real chance of dethroning Golden State if healthy — that said, they did lose some key pieces this offseason.
Thunder vs. Rockets: The Warriors were always going to get opening night billing as the defending champs with everyone back, but it would be a lot of fun to start the season with the focus elsewhere in the West and give the spotlight to what most expect to be the battle for the top contender to Golden State out West. Beyond that, it’d be a chance for a Carmelo Anthony revenge game of sorts (although in 2018 that seems unlikely to pan out how Anthony and the Rockets would want).
Celtics vs. Raptors: I think the league got it 100 percent right in the Eastern Conference, but it would be interesting to see Boston go up against Toronto, provided Kawhi Leonard is, you know, playing basketball come opening night. That uncertainty took away the slim chance for Toronto to get this spot, but if Leonard is the guy we saw two years ago, this could very well be the ECF matchup we see come May.
Jazz vs. Thunder: Sneakily one of the best series of the postseason, watching Paul George and Joe Ingles (?!) go at it in games was amazing. Russ put on one of the most incredible displays in Game 5 to keep Oklahoma City’s hopes alive after they looked completely dysfunctional. Donovan Mitchell was a star despite being banged up, and just generally there were some amazing games and amazing atmosphere.
Sixers vs. Heat: The best rivalry in the East is Philadelphia-Boston, but the Sixers-Heat series in the first round last year was among the most entertaining of the playoffs. It’s possible this gets one of those weird midday Christmas placements or just appears on one of the early TNT Thursday night slates, but I’m looking forward to these two teams battling it out once again and, very possibly, meeting in the early rounds of the postseason next year.
Thunder at Lakers: This is the only one that I’ll put a specific designation for home and away, because it’s going to be awful fun to see how the Thunder and Paul George come out in their first game in Staples Center after George so quickly and emphatically turned down the Lakers in free agency. It’s going to be the first opening night since 2014 that LeBron James is not on the bill — in 2014 his return to Cleveland wasn’t official until Thursday night against the Knicks — and it wouldn’t surprise me if L.A. similarly debuts the 2018-19 squad on the Thursday night card. That said, combining the buzz of LeBron’s first game with Paul George having a chance to show the Lakers why he stayed in OKC would be quite the juicy game.
Others may have Lakers-Warriors on their list, but I really don’t want to see Golden State beat L.A. by 20 on opening night when LeBron and company have absolutely no chemistry. Save that one please. I also don’t think anyone in Toronto or San Antonio is emotionally ready for Spurs-Raptors, so hopefully they hold that one off for a bit — and again, hope Leonard is healthy by the time that matchup goes down. The same goes for the Lakers first game in Cleveland.
Other possible fun matchups that are a little less obvious than the ones listed above would be: Bucks-Celtics, Pelicans-Blazers, Raptors-Wizards, Timberwolves-Nuggets, Jazz-Rockets, Magic-Hornets*, Pacers-Sixers, and many more.
Basically, it’s going to be a very fun NBA season, because there are lots of intriguing matchups around the league even if everyone’s all doom and gloom about a looming three-peat by Golden State.
*Just seeing if anyone’s still actually reading this.
