The Washington Wizards finally discovered on Tuesday what a 66-game NBA schedule looks like — and condensed doesn’t mean light. The nearly five-month NBA lockout forced the league to cram all of those games into 119 days, based on arena availability and travel logistics, so the Wizards will have little time to rest and have to sacrifice a few traditional matchups.
The Wizards will open the season on Dec. 26 at home against the New Jersey Nets, which would have been the same opponent as the previous Nov. 2 opener that was canceled because of the labor impasse. The defending champion Dallas Mavericks will not play at Verizon Center this season, but the Wizards will face them in Dallas on March 13. The Wizards will only travel to face the defending Eastern conference champion Miami Heat once (April 21), while hosting them on Feb. 10 and at the home finale on April 26.
District native Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder will come to Verizon Center on Jan. 18. The Los Angeles Lakers will visit once — March 7.
The Wizards will play 16 sets of back-to-back games and on three consecutive nights twice — from March 24-26 to April 4-6. Those three-in-row sets will happen near back-to-back sets to give them five games in six nights.
They will have a five-games-in-nine days trip, beginning in Detroit on Feb. 12 and ending in Phoenix on Feb. 20. They will also have a five-games-in-seven-days trip through San Antonio, Dallas, New Orleans, Atlanta and Memphis in March.
The Wizards are not scheduled to make any appearances on ABC, TNT or ESPN, though NBATV has them scheduled six times.
The Wizards will host every Eastern Conference team twice, with the exception of New Jersey, Chicago (Jan. 30), Southeast division-rival Atlanta (March 24) and Detroit (March 26). They will play every conference team on the road twice, except Indiana (March 29), New York (April 13), Miami (April 21) and Cleveland (April 25). In addition to Dallas, the Wizards will not host Western Conference teams Memphis, New Orleans, Phoenix, San Antonio and Utah. They will also not travel to play Golden State, the Los Angeles Lakers, Minnesota, Oklahoma City and Sacramento.
The Wizards will play 11 of their 33 home games on the weekend. All home games will tip-off at 7 p.m., except for Sunday matinees with Minnesota on Jan. 8 and Boston on Jan. 22 1 p.m. They will host Houston on Martin Luther King Jr. day (Jan. 16) at 2 p.m. They will also play Boston on New Years Day and the season finale with Miami at 8 p.m.
