The NBA season begins on Tuesday, 20 October, with the Knicks receiving their championship rings and raising a banner against a 76ers team that includes LeBron James in his 24th season and Jaylen Brown.
The 2026-27 NBA season, the league’s 81st, begins on Tuesday, 20 October, and the regular season ends on 11 April 2027, according to a CBS Sports report on the schedule. The first game is between the Boston Celtics and the Detroit Pistons at 3 pm ET at Little Caesars Arena, and opening night features the New York Knicks against the Philadelphia 76ers, with a ring ceremony and banner raising for the defending champions.
Search summaries of other reports say that opening night is a tripleheader, with Celtics-Pistons at 3 pm, Knicks-76ers at Madison Square Garden at 7 pm and Thunder-Spurs at 9:30 pm. The CBS report confirms the first two games, and the third is reported in the summary of Olympics.com coverage, so readers should check the league’s listing for the last time slot.
The Knicks are the defending champions after beating the San Antonio Spurs in five games, according to the summary of the Olympics.com guide. It says that Jalen Brunson was the Finals MVP after scoring a franchise Finals record of 45 points in the clincher in San Antonio, and describes the banner as the club’s first championship banner at Madison Square Garden in more than 50 years. Those details come from a search summary and were not checked against the league’s own records.
The 76ers are one of the main stories of the offseason. LeBron James has signed with Philadelphia and begins his 24th season, and Jaylen Brown has joined the team, according to CBS Sports. On Christmas Day, the Lakers host the 76ers, which reunites James with his son Bronny James, who is on the Lakers roster, as the report notes.
Giannis Antetokounmpo has been traded to the Miami Heat, and the report lists Kawhi Leonard as going to the Toronto Raptors in a move that was still pending. The transactions have rearranged several contenders, though the reports reviewed do not describe the win totals or odds, so no predictions are given here. One prediction in the search summaries has the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Knicks meeting in the 2027 Finals, but it is the view of one writer.
The schedule has several marked dates. The NBA Cup championship game is on 11 December at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, and the report lists a game in Paris on 14 January and one in Manchester on 17 January, both involving the Spurs and the Pelicans according to the summary. No games are scheduled for Election Day on 3 November, according to the CBS report.
The report also gives details of how the schedule is built. Each team has 80 of its 82 games locked in, with the final two decided by NBA Cup performance, and teams can have a maximum of 34 national television games, which the 76ers received. The 76ers have 13 back-to-backs, the fewest in the league, while the Bucks have only two national broadcasts, tied for the fewest.
The league’s season will be played against a background of a political calendar, as the Election Day break shows. For fans, the first test is on 20 October, when the champions begin the defence of their title at home.
Image: The Knicks at Madison Square Garden (file photo). Photo: Jean-Baptiste Bellet from Toulouse, France / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
