The NBA’s opening-night schedule spared the Celtics from what would have been a brutal scene.
Boston is on the slate for the league’s first night back, but the Celtics will play at 3 p.m. ET rather than in the spotlight game. The Philadelphia 76ers are set to visit the New York Knicks at 7 p.m. for New York’s banner night, and the Oklahoma City Thunder will face the San Antonio Spurs at 9:30 p.m. in a Western Conference Finals rematch.
That matters because plenty of people had already assumed Boston would be the opponent in Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks will raise their NBA Championship Banner. WFAN’s Tiki Barber even said he had been told by minority owner Marc Leder that the Celtics would be the team on the other side.
Instead, Boston got out of the way.
I truly couldn’t think of a worse way to start a season than being forced to watch the Knicks celebrate a championship. As whack as the 3 p.m. tip-off time in Detroit is, I’d take it over the alternative 100 times out of 100.
The reason the Celtics dodged that scenario, at least in this telling, comes back to LeBron James and the 76ers. Had James not joined Philadelphia last month, Boston might have been the team sent to New York for opening night. With all the attention, buzz, and buildup surrounding the Sixers, the league went with them instead.
Philadelphia has been one of the summer’s biggest stories already. The team landed Jaylen Brown from the Celtics and moved off Paul George’s $113 million owed over the next two seasons in one trade. Then it signed LeBron to a minimum contract, giving the Sixers what looks like one of the stronger starting fives in recent memory.
That group - James, Brown, Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and VJ Edgecombe - has the kind of talent that can stack up wins quickly. The bar around them is high enough that some would say anything short of a title would be a total failure.
And even for someone who isn’t pulling for Philadelphia or LeBron, it’s a lineup worth watching.
Celtics fans won’t have to wait long for the New York matchup, either. Boston hosts the Knicks on Oct. 23 at 7:00 p.m. ET, part of Amazon Prime’s first Friday night slate of the season alongside the Houston Rockets and Spurs.
In Other News...
NBA Passed On A Celtics Reunion Fans Expected Right Away
The NBAs early look at the 2026-27 schedule gave fans a first glimpse of opening night, the opening week and Christmas Day, but it did not deliver the kind of reunion many around Boston might have penciled in. With the Celtics and 76ers both reshaped by recent roster changes and carrying a rivalry that still draws attention, an early-season meeting between the two looked like an obvious showcase candidate.
Instead, the leagues preview pointed both clubs elsewhere for those marquee dates, leaving the anticipated Boston-Philadelphia spotlight matchup off the board for now. Bostons holiday stage belongs to another Eastern Conference opponent, and the full schedule release later on will be the next chance to see where, and when, the Celtics and Sixers finally land on each others calendar. [Read more 🡒]
Celtics Just Got An Opening Night Spotlight Few Teams Ever See
The Celtics are set to get a rare kind of showcase to open the 2026-27 NBA season, drawing the first game on the league calendar against the Pistons in a Tuesday matinee. A 3 p.m. ET tip-off is unusual by any standard, but it was chosen with a specific purpose in mind, as NBA and NBC executives wanted the opener to feel like an event while also reaching international viewers.
For Boston, it is another sign of how often the franchise is placed in the leagues brightest spotlight, even before the season has fully begun. The opener will lead into a packed night slate as the Knicks host the 76ers and the Thunder meet the Spurs, but the Celtics-Pistons game gets the first turn in front of the cameras, with the afternoon slot giving it a different kind of stage than the usual opening-night routine. [Read more 🡒]
Celtics Just Made Their Title Bet Impossible To Misread
The Celtics have made it clear this offseason that they are not chasing talent in a vacuum. Under Brad Stevens, the front office has leaned into basketball fit and team identity, a direction that stands in sharp contrast to Philadelphias talent-heavy approach. Bostons latest moves were built around that idea, with the club reshaping its roster to better match the way it wants to defend, manage possessions and play when the margins tighten in the playoffs.
There is still a reason the move feels so dramatic, though, because Boston did not just tinker at the edges. The Celtics dealt Jaylen Brown for Paul George, then followed with another addition meant to reinforce the same formula, bringing in Mitchell Robinson to help on the glass and at the defensive end. It is the kind of roster bet that says the Celtics believe cohesion can matter as much as star power, even if the real test of that theory is still ahead. [Read more 🡒]