Eight takeaways from Boston’s 2025-26 slate

It’s official: The Celtics will open their 2025-26 season on Wednesday, Oct. 22 with a house matchup with the Philadelphia 76ers.

The NBA launched the complete regular-season schedules for all 30 groups on Thursday. Listed here are eight takeaways from Boston’s slate:

1. Early return to MSG

Amazon Prime Video will start airing NBA video games this season as a part of the league’s new media rights megadeal, and the streamer’s inaugural outing shall be an Japanese Convention semifinal rematch between the Celtics and New York Knicks on Friday, Oct. 24 at Madison Sq. Backyard.

That would be the second sport of the season for Boston, which received’t have to attend lengthy to return to the location of the dying of their title protection. The Knicks eradicated the Celtics with a blowout Recreation 6 win at MSG this previous Might.

2. Nationwide publicity

The Celtics will play 25 nationally televised video games: seven on Prime, six on ESPN, six on NBC, 4 on Peacock and two on ABC.

That’s a considerable drop from final season, after they had been scheduled for 34 nationwide TV matchups, however nonetheless ranks eighth within the league, trailing the Thunder, Lakers, Warriors, Knicks, Timberwolves, Rockets and Nuggets. New York is the one group within the East with extra nationwide video games (34) than Boston this season.

The Celtics shall be particularly seen in February and March, after they’ll have 13 video games broadcast nationally in a 23-game span. These embody heavy-hitting matchups with Milwaukee (Feb. 1 and March 2), Dallas (Feb. 3), New York (Feb. 8), Golden State (Feb. 19), the Lakers (Feb. 22) and Denver (Feb. 25).

3. No Christmas matchups

Ten NBA groups will play on Christmas Day this 12 months. For the primary time in a decade, the Celtics won’t be one among them.

Boston was not included within the NBA’s marquee slate of vacation matchups, breaking a streak of 9 consecutive seasons with a Christmas sport for the C’s. The final time the Celtics had been idle on Dec. 25 was approach again in 2015, after they had been coming off a 40-42 marketing campaign underneath then-head coach Brad Stevens. Oddsmakers anticipate the 2025-26 Celtics to be equally mediocre after dropping Jayson Tatum to a torn Achilles and gutting their championship-winning roster this offseason.

Simply two Japanese Convention groups will play on Christmas this 12 months (Cleveland vs. New York at midday, adopted by San Antonio-Oklahoma Metropolis, Dallas-Golden State, Houston-Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota-Denver), underscoring how a lot stronger the West is projected to be.