Can you hear that? That’s the sound of the NBA stepping on the NFL’s toes. Can you feel that? That’s the feeling of soul-warming zen that can only come from a quick Trail Blazers schedule breakdown.
The NBA released their schedule for the first half of the 2020-21 NBA season on Friday, and fans everywhere are in a tizzy. The COVID-19 shortened 72-game season, rather than the standard 82-game season, comes with many questions. How will teams strike a balance between league guidelines, government protocols, and the exposure that comes along with everyday life; both at home and on the road? Will we make it 72 games without major changes to the schedule or even suspension of play? Who will win the Rudy Gobert patient zero award for the league’s first team-wide pandemic outbreak? These and many more are questions that for now, remain unanswerable. There still won’t be fans in attendance for the beginning of the year. Everyone will operate under strict precautions.
But make no mistake, this isn’t a bubble as we saw in Orlando this past summer. Nothing but his schedule will keep Lou Williams from spending as much time as he pleases at Magic City.
We do know that the slate of games for the first half of the season presents plenty of exciting storylines. Here’s some of what stood out to me about the first 37 games for the Portland Trail Blazers.
Home Opener Versus Utah
Portland will start the season at home against Utah a few days before Christmas, in what will be our first real look at the new Blazers squad. How will coach Terry Stotts utilize new additions Robert Covington and Derrick Jones? What does a Portland bench that will now feature Carmelo Anthony do to help spell Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum? It’s just the first game, and of course, plenty more tweaks will come. But it will be telling to see Stotts‘ initial vision for his lineup.
The League is Limiting Travel
The first road trip of the season, with games against the Lakers and Clippers, and a back to back against the Warriors, will see the Blazers remaining in California for their entire early slate of games in ‘The Golden State.’ This is fairly consistent throughout their first-half schedule, aside from a home game against Toronto sandwiched between two road games in Sacramento. It seems like a wise move from the NBA, but if teams suffer outbreaks and need to reschedule matchups, they will be faced with the dilemma of returning to one-off travel or canceling games altogether.
No Christmas Games
If you were hoping to unwrap a Blazers game on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day this year, you should have written to Santa Silver sooner. This will mark the second consecutive year Portland has not played on Christmas, although they do play the new-look Rockets at home on December 26th. I guess we’ll all just have to spend time with our families (or not because you shouldn’t be traveling!) instead.
February Looks Rough
In December, January, and March, the Blazers have a combined 15 home games and 8 road games. In February, Portland will be home for 4 games and on the road for 10. They play three back-to-back matchups (one at home, two on the road) all in consecutive weeks. They’ll get to ease into it with a majority of their early games at home and on the west coast, but by the time they play in Dallas on Valentine’s Day, it seems likely their love of the road will be waning.
How They Stack Up
When the Blazers play the Nuggets on February 23rd in Denver, they will have officially played all seven of the other Western Conference playoff teams from last season. Early games against the Lakers and Clippers may not accurately reflect how they fare against those squads, as it’s likely we see reduced minutes for their stars who played deep into the Orlando bubble. But Portland will have a big enough sample size to have a decent idea of where they fit in the conference power structure.
How It Looks
Honestly, it looks pretty good. February will be tough, but December and January hardly even see the Blazers traverse time zones. This team has lineup questions. It has injury questions. But just looking at the schedule, they should feel good about spending so much time at home early in the season to work on answers to those questions.
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