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Tim Bontemps
Two of the biggest return games of the 2025-26 NBA regular season will take place within a single week in November, as the vast majority of the schedule for all 30 NBA teams was released Thursday on ESPN’s “NBA Today.”
On Nov. 24, Kevin Durant will go back to Phoenix for the first time as a member of the Houston Rockets. On Nov. 28, Anthony Davis will return to Los Angeles as the Dallas Mavericks face the Lakers in an NBA Cup group game.
Each team now knows 80 of the 82 games it will play. The opening-week and holiday games, as well as the NBA Cup group schedule, were announced earlier this week.
The schedule also highlights the NBA’s new partnerships with NBC/Comcast and Amazon as part of the league’s 11-year pact with those broadcast entities alongside ESPN/ABC, which will retain the NBA Finals.
Durant’s return to Phoenix, which traded the star to Houston in June, will be shown on NBC. Meanwhile, Davis, who was swapped for Luka Doncic in February in one of the most shocking trades in NBA history, will return to Los Angeles on Amazon Prime.
The Lakers and Mavericks will meet three other times this season: Jan. 24 in Dallas (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC), Feb. 12 in Los Angeles and April 5 in Dallas.
On Feb. 1 — exactly a 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 again square off at MSG on NBC.
The defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder will also have lots of big matchups, many of them over the back half of the schedule. Durant and the Rockets will visit Oklahoma City for the ring ceremony on opening night (Oct. 21), and Houston will be back in Oklahoma City on Feb. 7 (3:30 p.m., ABC); the Thunder will make their lone trip to Houston on Jan. 15.
The Thunder will first see the Minnesota Timberwolves, their Western Conference finals opponent last season, on Nov. 26 (7:30 p.m., ESPN) in Oklahoma City, where they will again play March 15 (1 p.m., ESPN). They will play in Minnesota twice, on Dec. 19 and Jan. 29.
All 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 from February onward, giving both players a chance to make a late case for this season’s award. Denver will travel to Oklahoma City on Feb. 27 (9:30 p.m., ESPN) and March 9, and the Nuggets will host the Thunder on Feb. 1 and April 10.
That isn’t the only potential MVP showdown late in the season. The Lakers and Thunder will face each other twice over a short span — in Oklahoma City on April 2 and in Los Angeles on April 7.
The Thunder will have four late-season meetings against Eastern Conference favorites Cleveland — at the Cavaliers on Jan. 19, in Oklahoma City on Feb. 22 (1 p.m., ABC) — and New York — at Madison Square Garden on March 4 (7 p.m., ESPN), in Oklahoma City on March 29.
The Knicks and Cavaliers will play in New York during opening week (Oct. 22, 7 p.m., ESPN) and on Christmas Day (noon, ABC/ESPN) before a final matchup in Cleveland on Feb. 24.
New York will host the resurgent Atlanta Hawks and longtime MSG villain Trae Young for the first time this season Jan. 2. The Cavaliers, meanwhile, will host LeBron James in what could be his final game in Cleveland on Jan. 28 (7 p.m., ESPN).
Other notable returns by star players are on the schedule.
Center Myles Turner, who has played only for the Pacers across his first 11 NBA seasons, will return to Indiana on Nov. 3 as a member of the Milwaukee Bucks.
New LA Clippers center Brook Lopez will make his lone visit back to Milwaukee on March 29.
Desmond Bane, who was traded by the Grizzlies to the Orlando Magic in a blockbuster deal in June, will visit Memphis on Jan. 18.
In back-to-back games later that month, the Boston Celtics will welcome back a pair of key contributors from their 2023-24 championship team that were traded away this summer. Jrue Holiday and the Portland Trail Blazers will visit Boston on Jan. 26, and Kristaps Porzingis and the Hawks will come to town Jan. 28.