Save the Dates
2015-08-12
The official NBA calendar was just released today, and now we finally know what the roadmap will look like for the Cavs’ journey to capture a title next season.
The Cavs get the honor of tipping off Opening Night for the NBA on October 27 in Chicago against Derrick Rose, Jimmy Butler and the Bulls. After a second road game against the Memphis Grizzlies, the Cavs return to the Q for their Home Opener on October 30 against LBJ’s old pals, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh and the Miami Heat.
Other potentially important match-ups (in addition to the already leaked Christmas Day game against the Warriors at Golden State) to mark on your calendar include…
— A rematch with the Warriors on Jan. 18 in Cleveland on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
— An ECF rematch with the Atlanta Hawks on November 21 in Cleveland. Although interestingly, the Cavs only play the Hawks three times next season, with the last two both not scheduled until April (most likely after the overall best record has been determined). This will give the Hawks only limited chances to take their revenge on Delly…
— A tough Texas two-step with a back-to-back visit to San Antonio and Houston, January 14 and 15 to play the LaMarcus enhanced Spurs and the Lawson enhanced Rockets.
— A west coast trip to see Doc, his kid, Runaway DJ, The Truth and the rest of the Clips on March 13.
— Three more dustups with the Bulls on January 23, February 18 and April 9.
— Two trips to Miami to play the Heat, December 5 and March 19 (as with the Hawks, the Cavs only play the Heat three times next season).
The Cavs will also have some potential MVP marquee player match-up games including…
— The LeBron and Kevin Durant matchups, Dec. 17 in Cleveland and Feb. 21 in OKC.
— The final LeBron and Kobe game (if this turns out to be Bryant’s last season) March 10 in L.A (a game that I will most definitely try to attend).
— Two matchups with future MVP of the League, The Brow and his up-and-coming Pelicans, December 4 in New Orleans and February 6 in Cleveland.
— And one more tangle with The Beard, in what could potentially be the last meaningful game before the playoffs, on March 29 in Cleveland.
According to ESPN, there was an overall effort by the NBA to reduce the difficult four games-in-five-nights sets and the number of back-to-backs for teams. It is one of the measures being implemented and experimented with as the league attempts to get players more rest.
To that end, the Cavs will play 19 sets of back-to-back games, but have only one stretch of four games in five nights (December 25-29). Their longest road trip, which spans six games from January 6-15, features the aforementioned swing through Texas. Their longest home stand runs from February 5-18, when they’ll get a chance to see if Kelly Olynyk will actually show his face in Cleveland on February 5.
The Cavs will also, unsurprisingly, be the primary draw for the networks, as they will have 34 nationally televised games, with 10 on ESPN, nine on TNT, six on ABC and nine on NBATV.
Here’s a downloadable schedule you can sync with your mobile calendar, courtesy of Cavs.com, so you never miss a game of the upcoming season.
Just 76 more days until Opening Night in Chicago… GO CAVS!
LBJ IS A SUPERSTAR OFF THE COURT AS WELL —–SEE SCHOLARSHIPS FOR KIDS TO EVIL’S ALUMNI AKRON UNIVERSITY ——HE HAS MATURED SO MUCH —-GREAT TO SEE !!!!
Good stuff from LBJ in the Windy article… Enjoyed his comments about KLove…
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/13432927/lebron-james-tristan-thompson-cleveland-cavaliers-need-back
Third time that LBJ has said this now…
Yep. Good for LBJ. The cool thing is that Thompson will be back.
That’s true… no matter what happens (long term deal, short term deal or qualifying offer acceptance) TT is a Cav for at least one more season…
Yep. I’m betting he signs longer term too.
Not that it matters, since the Cavs should be pretty hard to beat anyway, but…
NOT RELATIVE TO THE COLUMN —-A FRIEND WHO IS RATHER HIGH UP THE LADDER AT CEDAR POINT HAS ” RUMORED ” THAT LEBRON / FAMILY / FRIENDS HAVE ARRIVED —–ENJOY YOUR DAY LEBRON !!!—-
I heard he’s too tall and cannot go on the coaster.
Height limit is 6’6” on a lot of their coasters. I assume it’s because they could lose hands or feet. LeBron has definitely ridden Raptor (there’s a picture of it). Actually working on a Cedar Point series right now for ranking the offseason of all 30 teams in relation to Cedar Point rides. First installment should be up Saturday or Sunday.
Heard a guy got killed looking for his cell phone in a restricted area of the Raptor…
So we have Cols down for 82-0.
I’m going with a more conservative 64-18.
That’s probably correct because Kyrie and Love will not be available for all the games. A completely healthy starting 5 goes 74-8.
I could see LBJ being motivated to best his own personal win total (66 with 08-09 Cavs) and GSW’s last year (67). Don’t know that there’s ever going to be another team that can break the 95-96 Bulls 72-10 record, but you never know… All depends on injuries, rest and surprises (like the Hawks and Warriors in the regular season last year).
If everyone is healthy, I predict they will go 84 – (-2).
Ballsy move Raoul! Negative losses!
It would be fun to see CtB do their own top 20 (or less) Cav villains . We know WHO is #1! Cameraman & a ref has to be in there somewhere. Have to make it interesting. Tobias?
Of all time? Cause there were some big ones in the 80s…
Of All Time? Holy Cow That List would be much larger than 20.
Mike Brown should be number one.
Excellent wisecrack! HAHAHA.
Tony Brothers and the Bald Crawford
Who was the guy in charge of those awful rosters next to LeBron 2004-2010? Those people should be #1 on our villains list. Was it Ferry? Putting a trash roster around a top 5 NBA player and failing to win a title makes him #1.
Was Jim Paxson and Ferry. Paxson absolutely should be up there. He trashed the roster and gave away valuable draft picks when Lebron was still young and missing the playoffs. When Ferry took over, he had to deal with the after-effects of Paxson for years.
In alternate universe news, where Lebron decided to stay in Miami: TT already signed for 4/52 in January (because that’s what complementary PF’s on non-playoff teams take). Dion is still recovering from his injury in February (overextending his shoulders trying to tell Kyrie and Wiggins he was open). AB’s steady climb from “dog poop on fire” to “just dog poop” has us all excited. Between Karasev and Harris, we hope we have Jimmer 2.0. Zeller’s decent season has us chomping at the bit to match a near max offer in RFA next summer. Lastly, we won the top pick in… Read more »
Oh goodness. Cavs would’ve lost 60 games last year without LeBron and Love. It just would’ve been a nightmare. Thank goodness that LeBron came back. Staring into the hopeless abyss of trying desperately to find another player beyond Kyrie who is good would’ve sucked the soul from all of us.
They might have gone for Love just the same. Lebron was going to do the one year deal whether it was in Miami or Cleveland due to his desire to have a supermax contract. Cleveland might have tried enticing him this year with a second superstar. Glad it didn’t go that way though.
Love would not have come here if LeBron wasn’t here. At best he would’ve come for one year. But most likely he would’ve refused to be traded to Cleveland.
Like you said, he might have come for a year. And if the Cavs would have had another chance at Lebron. Maybe the pool meeting still happens. I bet he still has to get his own chair.
That’s a stellar idea.
This list is stupid, but it’s the first time Delly has been rated higher than LeBron at something…
http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/13395905/top-25-sports-villains-most-adversarial-relationships-nfl-nba-mlb-nhl-college-football
I surprised Goodell didn’t rank higher than that! Delly #19 Goodell #20. That is laughable. I think the NBA cameraman should be in there somewhere too!
How does Kelly Olynyk vs the Cavs not make the list? Screw Jokehim Noah …
It’s really amazing how much better the Cavs are than every other team in the league.
They absolutely could win every game
Realistically, the Cavs will be favored in most games.
Only injuries will prevent them from winning them all.
Lebron could probably play 4 on 5 and still win em all.
Like it or not, the rest of NBA is going to have to deal with this juggernaut.
Yeay for nationally televised!
We will win all these games. Even though Chicago got rid of its horrible coach they still aren’t good enough to remotely compete with the Cavs. The celtics completely suck with a team full of bench players and zero starters. The heat will be good but we will crush them anyways. Pelicans are being massively overrated. Only OKC can beat a healthy Cavs team. And they can’t do it more than twice in a 7 game series. This year will be a cakewalk.