Great Returns and Epic Showdowns in the 2025-26 NBA Season
The 2025-26 NBA regular season promises strong emotions, with several games marked by the return of stars to their former cities and key matchups between the most competitive teams. Most of the schedule for the 30 NBA teams was revealed, anticipating a season full of action from the start.
One of the most anticipated moments will be Kevin Durant’s return to Phoenix as a member of the Houston Rockets. This encounter will take place on November 24th.
On November 28, Anthony Davis will return to Los Angeles as the Dallas Mavericks face the Lakers in an NBA Cup game.
Each team already knows 80 of the 82 games they will play. The opening week and holiday games, as well as the NBA Cup schedule, were announced earlier this week.
The calendar also highlights the NBA’s new partnerships with NBC/Comcast and Amazon, as part of the league’s 11-year agreement with those broadcast entities along with ESPN/ABC, which will retain the NBA Finals.
Durant’s return to Phoenix, who traded the star to Houston in June, will be broadcast on NBC. Meanwhile, Davis, who was traded for Luka Doncic in February in one of the most impactful trades in NBA history, will return to Los Angeles on Amazon Prime.
The Lakers and Mavericks will face each other three more times this season: January 24 in Dallas, February 12 in Los Angeles, and April 5 in Dallas.
On February 1st, exactly one year after the Lakers played at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks, only for the Doncic trade to happen shortly after the game, those two teams will face each other again at MSG on NBC.
The current champions, the Oklahoma City Thunder, will also have many important matchups, many of them in the second half of the schedule. Durant and the Rockets will visit Oklahoma City for the ring ceremony on opening night (October 21), and Houston will return to Oklahoma City on February 7; the Thunder will make their only trip to Houston on January 15.
The Thunder will face the Minnesota Timberwolves for the first time, their Western Conference Finals rival last season, on November 26 in Oklahoma City, where they will play again on March 15. They will play in Minnesota twice, on December 19 and January 29.
The four matchups between Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who was last season’s MVP, and three-time MVP Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets will take place starting in February, giving both players a late chance to make a bid for this season’s award. Denver will travel to Oklahoma City on February 27 and March 9, and the Nuggets will host the Thunder on February 1 and April 10.
That’s not the only potential MVP matchup at the end of the season. The Lakers and Thunder will face off twice in a short period of time, in Oklahoma City on April 2 and in Los Angeles on April 7.
The Thunder will have four encounters at the end of the season against the favorites of the Eastern Conference, Cleveland, in the Cavaliers on January 19, in Oklahoma City on February 22, and New York, at Madison Square Garden on March 4, in Oklahoma City on March 29.
The Knicks and Cavaliers will play in New York during opening week (October 22) and on Christmas Day (midday) before a final matchup in Cleveland on February 24.
New York will welcome the resurging Atlanta Hawks and long-time MSG villain Trae Young for the first time this season on January 2nd. Meanwhile, the Cavaliers will host LeBron James in what could be his last game in Cleveland on January 28th.
Other notable returns of star players are also on the schedule.
The pivot Myles Turner, who has only played for the Pacers in his first 11 seasons in the NBA, will return to Indiana on November 3 as a member of the Milwaukee Bucks.
The new LA Clippers center, Brook Lopez, will make his only visit to Milwaukee on March 29.
Desmond Bane, who was traded by the Grizzlies to the Orlando Magic in a high-impact deal in June, will visit Memphis on January 18.
In consecutive games later that month, the Boston Celtics will welcome a pair of key contributors from their 2023-24 championship team who were traded this summer. Jrue Holiday and the Portland Trail Blazers will visit Boston on January 26, and Kristaps Porzingis and the Hawks will come to town on January 28.
