LeBron James and Stephen Curry face off for the 57th time when L.A. hosts Golden State in the opening night doubleheader on NBC/Peacock.
With the 2025-26 NBA Schedule Release presented by Ticketmaster complete, it’s time to dig in and find the biggest storylines and most intriguing matchups to watch as a new season gets underway.
From a loaded opening week to the start of the third-annual Emirates NBA Cup and another star-studded slate of games on Christmas Day, here are 10 games before the close of 2025 that you simply can’t miss.
Rockets at Thunder
> Tuesday, Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC/Peacock
The NBA returns to NBC for the first time since the 2001-02 season with an opening night doubleheader that begins with the first championship banner raising and ring night in Oklahoma City.
Before the new season tips off, the 2024-25 champion Thunder will celebrate last season one final time before beginning their title defense against a Rockets team that finished second in the West last season and added Kevin Durant this summer.
KD will make his Houston debut back in his old stomping grounds, while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder look to take the first step toward the NBA’s first back-to-back title run since Durant and the 2017-18 Warriors.
Warriors at Lakers
> Tuesday, Oct. 21 at 10 p.m. ET on NBC/Peacock
The opening night doubleheader concludes with a star-studded affair in Los Angeles as the Lakers host the Warriors in the 57th head-to-head meeting between generational icons LeBron James and Stephen Curry.
In addition to writing a new chapter to that all-time rivalry, this game will be historic with James becoming the first player in NBA history to play in a 23rd NBA season as the league’s all-time leading scorer continues to defy Father Tim.
And don’t forget about L.A.’s Luka Dončić and Golden State’s Jimmy Butler III – two of the biggest trade acquisitions of last season – who will play in their first season openers with their respective new teams.
Spurs at Mavericks
> Wednesday, Oct. 22 at 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN
When No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg and the Mavericks host No. 2 pick Dylan Harper and the Spurs, it will be only the second time since 1966 that the top two picks in the same NBA Draft will meet in the first career regular-season game for both players. The only other time it happened was in 2015 between Karl-Anthony Towns and D’Angelo Russell.
Beyond the rookie faceoff, this game will mark the return of Victor Wembanyama for the start of his third NBA season after his sophomore season was cut short due to deep vein thrombosis in his shoulder. After returning to full health, traveling the world and learning from a former Kia MVP and DPOY in Kevin Garnett, how will Year 3 Wemby look when he takes the court alongside Harper, last year’s Kia ROY Stephon Castle and newly-extended De’Aaron Fox?
Thunder at Pacers
> Thursday, Oct. 23 at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN
Two days after receiving their championship rings, the Thunder will head to Indianapolis for the first of two NBA Finals rematches. It comes just four months and a day after Finals MVP SGA and the Thunder outlasted Pascal Siakam and the Pacers in a seven-game instant classic.
Oklahoma City returns nearly its entire squad – players that accounted for a league-high 95% of last season’s minutes – as they look to run it back. Indiana ranks third in continuity (83%), but will be without two starters from last year’s Finals team for this rematch – Tyrese Haliburton (recovering from a torn Achilles) and Myles Turner (signed with Milwaukee this summer).
Timberwolves at Lakers
> Friday, Oct. 24 at 10 p.m. ET on Prime
The first Friday night doubleheader on Prime Video features a 2025 First-Round Playoff rematch between the Wolves and Lakers – which Minnesota won in five games in its first step toward back-to-back runs to the Western Conference Finals.
At the center of this matchup is L.A’s Dončić (28.2 ppg) and Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards (27.6 ppg) – two of the game’s most dynamic young scorers, who respectively finished fourth and fifth in scoring last season among players that played 50+ games. Their playoff history goes deeper than last year’s Wolves-Lakers matchup as Minnesota’s 2024 postseason was ended by Dončić and the Mavs in the West Finals.
Celtics at Sixers
> Friday, Oct. 31 at 7 p.m. ET on Prime
The 2025 Emirates NBA Cup tips off on Halloween with the opening night of Group Play on Prime Video with Boston visiting Philadelphia. How deep is the history between the Celtics and Sixers? No two teams have faced each other in more games – 587 regular season and postseason combined, including a record 22 Playoff series. However, this is their first meeting in NBA Cup Group Play in the competition’s three-year history.
This game will offer an early-season glimpse of the new-look Celtics, who will be without Jayson Tatum (Achilles), Jrue Holiday (Portland) and Kristaps Porziņģis (Atlanta) from their 2024 title team, but add a young scorer in Anfernee Simons. For the Sixers, how will the trio of Joel Embiid, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey look after playing only 15 games together last season?
Mavericks vs. Pistons
> Saturday, Nov. 1 at 10 p.m. ET on Peacock
The global reach of the NBA continues to grow with five preseason games and three regular-season games being played outside the United States this season. The first of those regular-season games features the Mavs and Pistons in Mexico City, marking the 34th NBA game (regular season and preseason combined) played in Mexico since 1992 – more than any country outside the U.S. and Canada.
This matchup features a number of established stars – Dallas’ Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson and Kyrie Irving (currently injured) have a combined 23 All-Star appearances and six championships between them – and rising stars such as Detroit’s Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren and Jaden Ivey as well as Dallas’ Cooper Flagg as this year’s No. 1 overall pick plays in his first international NBA game.
Detroit is coming off one of the biggest single-season turnarounds in NBA history, increasing their win total by 30 from the previous season and making its first playoff appearance since 2019. Dallas begins a new era with Flagg’s arrival coinciding with the first full season with AD as a Maverick.
Bucks at Knicks
> Friday, Nov. 28 at 7:30 p.m. ET on Prime
The final night of Group Play in the 2025 Emirates NBA Cup features last year’s Cup champions – the Milwaukee Bucks – visiting the Knicks in an East Group C matchup featuring the only two teams that swept Group Play (4-0) last season.
Last season, the NBA Cup was a catalyst for Milwaukee’s in-season turnaround. Just 2-8 through 10 games, the Bucks went a perfect 7-0 in the NBA Cup – remaining unbeaten in Group Play in the event’s history, rolling through the single-elimination quarters and semis before defeating the eventual NBA champion Thunder to win the Cup.
New York’s only Group Play loss in the event’s history came in 2023 at the hands of the Bucks. Can the Knicks avenge that loss and hurt Milwaukee’s hopes of repeating as champs?
Cavaliers at Knicks
> Thursday, Dec. 25 at Noon ET on ABC/ESPN
For the 18th straight year, the NBA on Christmas Day will feature a five-game slate of holiday hoops. And for a record-extending 58th time, the Knicks will play on Christmas Day as they host the Cavs in a showdown of top-3 teams in the East last season.
The spotlight will shine on the matchup of All-Star guards between Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell and New York’s Jalen Brunson. Last season, Mitchell (24.0 ppg) led the Cavs to an East-leading 64 wins, while Brunson (212 clutch pts, regular season and postseason combined) was named Kia Clutch Player of the Year.
However, both teams fell short of reaching the NBA Finals after falling to the Indiana Pacers – Cleveland in the East Semis in five, New York in the East Finals in six. Which of these two East contenders can make a Christmas Day statement with a win?
Timberwolves at Nuggets
> Thursday, Dec. 25 at 10:30 p.m. ET on ABC/ESPN
The Christmas Day slate ends in Denver, where Nikola Jokić and the Nuggets host Edwards and the Wolves in a budding rivalry that took shape in a seven-game series in the 2024 West Semifinals, which was won by Minnesota in the Mile High City.
The Wolves won the final two games of that series and swept last season’s regular-season series, pushing their head-to-head win streak over the Nuggets to six straight with a double-overtime win on April 1 that was an instant classic. Behind Edwards’ 34 points and matching 26-pieces from Julius Randle and Nickeil Alexander-Walker (now in Atlanta), the Wolves overcame the highest-scoring triple-double in NBA history as Jokić dropped a 61-10-10 game in the loss.