The National Basketball Association (NBA) will tip off its 71st season on Wednesday, Oct. 26 with three games on opening night. The NBA Champion Cleveland Cavaliers will host the New York Knicks at 7:30 p.m. ET, followed by the second game, the Portland Trail Blazers will host the Utah Jazz at 10 p.m. ET. For the third game, the San Antonio Spurs will visit the Golden State Warriors at 10:30 p.m. ET for a matchup of the teams with the league’s best records last season.
Here is a preview of the opening night
matchups:
New York at
Cleveland: The
Cavaliers will receive their championship rings before facing the new-look
Knicks, who added former Kia NBA Most Valuable Player Derrick Rose and former
Kia NBA Defensive Player of the Year Joakim Noah in the offseason. Jeff Hornacek will make his head-coaching
debut with New York. Cleveland’s Tyronn
Lue will coach his first regular-season opener after taking over as head coach
last January and leading the Cavaliers to their first NBA title in franchise
history. Four-time Kia NBA MVP LeBron
James of Cleveland opens the season needing 114 points to pass Hakeem Olajuwon
for 10th place on the NBA’s all-time scoring list.
Utah at
Portland: The
Trail Blazers, who have won an NBA-record 15 consecutive regular-season home
openers, feature one of the NBA’s best backcourts in two-time All-Star Damian
Lillard and 2015-16 Kia NBA Most Improved Player CJ McCollum. The two guards led Portland to its third
consecutive playoff appearance last season.
The Jazz, looking to reach the playoffs for the first time since 2012,
added veterans Boris Diaw, George Hill and Joe Johnson in the offseason to
complement a promising young core.
Utah’s Gordon Hayward, who averaged a team-high 19.7 points last season,
will miss the game with a finger injury.
San Antonio at
Golden State: Kevin
Durant will make his debut with the Warriors, who signed the four-time scoring
champion and 2013-14 Kia NBA MVP after a league-record 73-9 season and a loss
to Cleveland in The Finals 2016. Durant
joins two-time reigning Kia NBA MVP Stephen Curry and fellow All-Stars Draymond
Green and Klay Thompson to give the Golden State a potent offense. The Spurs will have a new look with six-time
All-Star Pau Gasol at center in place of NBA legend Tim Duncan, who retired
after 19 seasons with San Antonio. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has a 17-2 record
in regular-season openers.
Below please find the NBA broadcast
schedule in the Philippines on Oct. 26
·
New
York Knicks at Cleveland Cavaliers, Wednesday, Oct. 26 at 7:30 a.m. on NBA
Premium TV
·
Utah
Jazz at Portland Trail Blazers, Wednesday, Oct. 26 at 10 a.m. on Basketball TV
·
San
Antonio Spurs at Golden State Warriors, Wednesday, Oct. 26 at 10:30 a.m. on ABS-CBN
S+A and NBA Premium TV
About the NBA
The NBA is a global sports and
media business built around three professional sports leagues: the National
Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, and the
NBA Development League. The league has
established a major international presence with games and programming in 215
countries and territories in 49 languages, and NBA merchandise for sale in more
than 125,000 stores in 100 countries on 6 continents. NBA rosters at the start of the 2015-16
season featured 100 international players from 37 countries and
territories. NBA Digital’s assets
include NBA TV, NBA.com and the NBA App, which achieved record
viewership and traffic during the 2015-16 season.
The NBA has created one of the largest social media communities in the
world, with more than one billion likes and followers globally across all
league, team, and player platforms. Through NBA Cares, the league
addresses important social issues by working with internationally recognized
youth-serving organizations that support education, youth and family
development, and health-related causes.
*This is Press Release
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