Of the Los Angeles Lakers’ 13 occasions they play on back-to-back nights in 2018-19, here are the three most intriguing found after observing schedule.
The release of the NBA schedule is not as drastic as the NFL in terms of dictating how a season may go. The natural difference in the amount of games played per team (82 for NBA vs. 16 for NFL) makes it nearly impossible to compare the two, but that doesn’t mean the intrigue and date circulation of fans and teams alike isn’t prevalent in both leagues.
The Los Angeles Lakers are no different than any other NBA team in this situation, especially with LeBron James on the roster. I wrote previously about a couple of their games on marquee NBA dates and his return to face the Cleveland Cavaliers in Ohio on Nov. 21, but there are plenty of matchups that catch the eye for the Lakers; we know heading into the season they will play every team at least twice.
For this piece, I’m going to take a look at a certain aspect of the Lakers’ schedule: the back-to-backs. These are, as you may have guessed it, when a team plays on consecutive days and are seen as a disadvantage to the team playing on the second night of one.
The Lakers will have 13 back-to-backs for the second straight season. With the NBA making its schedule to give national televised game participants as little incentive as possible to rest their players, there aren’t many highly competitive back-to-backs where both teams are contenders. I’ll begin my top three with a late season home game against an Eastern Conference team before heading to LeBron’s least favorite place to play in the NBA.