Just yesterday, the NBA released the full schedule for every team this upcoming season. While fans of the Houston Rockets already got the news that their team wouldn’t be playing on Christmas Day, there were still more surprises unveiled.
It was no surprise that the Rockets would have their first nationally televised game on Amazon Prime Video, as we covered it here on Roundtable. That highly anticipated matchup with the Western Conference champion San Antonio Spurs was expected to start the season off for Ime Udoka and his crew, but that won’t be the case.
It was revealed that Houston will host the Dallas Mavericks for their home opener on Wednesday, October 21st. Just nine days later, they’ll face off against the Mavericks again, this time in Dallas on October 30th. That’ll be the first night of a back-to-back that concludes on Halloween.
That’s nothing compared to the series that the Rockets have against the Atlanta Hawks, though. After staying in Texas for the first two games of the season, Houston will make an immediate trip a couple of hours to the east and have to suit up again the very next day. Another back-to-back on their hands.
After playing in Atlanta, the Rockets will then host the Hawks in Houston two days later, completing that full season series after only 4/82 games will have been played. That’s odd to say the least.
That first back-to-back might be the strangest one, but they’re all important to pay attention to. After not having any until the first week of December last season, they’ll now be tested in games two and three of this upcoming season. They’re scheduled to play in five separate back-to-backs before Christmas.
That is a little bit concerning, considering this team wasn’t able to win both games in consecutive nights until March 20th and 21st. That was games number 69 and 70, as seen on Basketball-Reference.
There’s still the same number of back-to-backs for them to get through, at 13, but I'm definitely worried about them being front-loaded on the schedule this time around. They’ll have to figure out how to tackle that obstacle sooner rather than later.
That might be easier said than done if Fred VanVleet, and even Steven Adams aren’t playing in back-to-backs after their respective surgeries, though. I’m curious to see how that plays out and when we get an update.