NEW YORK — Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jaylen Brown will play NBA homecoming games a week apart in January.
The full schedule for the league’s 2026-27 season was released Thursday, setting the dates for the two former NBA Finals MVPs to return to face the teams that traded them this summer.
The schedules for opening night and Christmas had already been unveiled earlier this week, so those two games were among the most intriguing matchups not yet known. Brown, who was dealt from the Boston Celtics to the rival Philadelphia 76ers in a stunning move, could play his first game back in Beantown on Jan. 21.
Antetokounmpo was expected to be traded by the Milwaukee Bucks this offseason — at one point speculation was that he might be swapped for Brown — and was eventually dealt to the Miami Heat. The Heat will travel to face the Bucks for the first time with Antetokounmpo on board Jan. 28.
Both of those games, which will be on Thursday nights, will stream on Amazon Prime Video.
The season will open Oct. 20 with a tripleheader, highlighted by four-time NBA MVP LeBron James, Brown and the 76ers visiting the New York Knicks, who will receive their rings after winning the franchise’s first championship since 1973.
NBA All-Star Game weekend is set for Feb. 19-21 in Phoenix, and the regular season ends April 11.
Every team will play on Monday, Nov. 2, and there will then be no games the following night, which is Election Day in the United States. The league is leaving that first Tuesday in November as an open day in hopes that fans and members of the NBA community will participate in the voting process.
No teams will play on Saturday, April 10, the penultimate day of the regular season. Every team is then in action on the final day, with all the games matching Eastern Conference teams and the one interconference matchup scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. Eastern. The games involving Western Confernce teams are set for 8:30 p.m.
There will be 90 regular-season games televised nationally on ABC or NBC, up from 79 last season. Every team will be scheduled to appear on national TV at least twice.
Throughout the season, games will stream on Peacock on Monday nights, be shown on NBC and Peacock on Tuesdays, be televised by ESPN on Wednesdays, and stream on Prime Video on Fridays.
Saturday night prime-time games on ABC begin Dec. 12 with the Knicks visiting the Heat, while NBC’s “Sunday Night Basketball” returns Jan. 24 with the Oklahoma City Thunder visiting the Golden State Warriors.
Prime Video will begin streaming Thursday night doubleheaders in January and some Saturday afternoon games, starting Feb. 6 with the Portland Blazers visiting the Memphis Grizzlies. It will be the first time the Blazers visit the Grizzlies this season, and it could mark the first time Ja Morant plays in Memphis since being traded by the Tennessee team to Portland.
The Knicks have the most appearances on ABC with six, while the 76ers, Los Angeles Lakers, Minnesota Timberwolves and San Antonio Spurs ll are featured on ESPN eight times.
The 76ers, Knicks, Lakers, Spurs, Thunder, Warriors, Denver Nuggets and Houston Rockets all get the maximum 11 appearances on NBC.
Teams will play games on back-to-back nights an average of 14.2 times this season, the lowest total since the NBA Cup was added to the schedule, and no team will have more than 16. No team will play eight games in 12 nights, or 18 in 30.
There are 59 back-to-backs involving at least 750 miles of travel, down from 74 last season.
No team will be scheduled to play the night before games in the NBA Cup in-season tournament, or if they are in nationally televised games on Christmas, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Sunday nights on NBC or Saturday nights on ABC.
Every season has its share of individual milestones, and while many are unpredictable, the schedule release makes it easier to plan for some potential big moments.
If veteran forward Kevin Durant averages 26 points, as he did in his first season with the Rockets in 2025-26, the 16-time NBA All-Star could move past late Lakers star Kobe Bryant into fourth place on the career scoring list sometime around Jan. 16, when the Rockets would be at the midpoint of their schedule.
Meanwhile, Rick Carlisle is set to become the eighth man to coach 2,000 NBA games on March 8, when his Indiana Pacers play their 65th game of the season.