Sixers 22-23 Schedule Highlights
That last month is pretty brutal!
Adam Aaronson, whose legal name is Sixers Adam (@SixersAdam on Twitter), covers the Sixers for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez. He believes cantaloupe is the best food in existence, and is brought to you by the Official Realtor of The Process, Adam Ksebe.
As the basketball world awaits a Kevin Durant trade, we finally have something new to discuss, as the 2022-2023 NBA schedule was released Wednesday afternoon.
For the most part, the schedule release is more exciting than it is telling -- all in all, teams’ schedules look mostly the same in the aggregate. But, substantive or not, it is a vehicle for some fun.
So let’s talk about the stuff that does matter as well as the dates worth waiting for.
Less frequent Eastern Conference opponents
Every year, each NBA plays four games -- two at home and two on the road -- against each team in their conference, and two games -- one at home and one on the road -- against teams in the opposite conference.
However, for every NBA team, there are four in-conference teams who they only face off against three times rather than four. These are four randomly-selected teams who are in said team’s conference but not their division. Of course, teams hope these four randomly-selected, less frequent opponents are some of the better teams in the conference, as it is the main differentiator between various clubs’ strength of schedule.
This year, the Sixers draw was a solid one: they will face the Miami Heat, Cleveland Cavaliers, Charlotte Hornets and Detroit Pistons three times each, rather than the usual four. Miami could very well be a legitimate championship contender once again. Cleveland and Charlotte are two young teams with blue-chip talents that are on the rise. Detroit is still very young, but they also have multiple highly-intriguing young talents and could be better than expected.
I won’t pretend this is some sort of earth-shattering piece of news, but as far as scheduling goes in the NBA, this may be the most significant takeaway one can reasonably make.
A brutal end to the season
In years past, it’s felt like the Sixers have had a front-loaded schedule where most of their matchups against elite teams have come in the earlier portion of the season. In 2022-23, that will not be the case.
Starting on March 20th, 2023 until the end of the regular season, the Sixers have to run quite the gauntlet of difficult opponents. Their final 12 games come against Chicago (twice), Golden State, Phoenix, Denver, Dallas, Toronto, Milwaukee, Boston, Miami, Atlanta and Brooklyn.
They will survive, surely, but the Sixers could end up limping into the playoffs because of this brutal stretch to end the season.
Back-to-backs
By my count, the Sixers have 14 back-to-backs during the 22-23 campaign, which is right around the average amount. The NBA has done a great job in recent years with limiting the frequency of back-to-backs and ensuring that most teams have around the same amount of them.
National TV appearances and marquee matchups
According to the tally of Krishna Narsu, the Sixers will play in 23 games televised by ESPN, TNT or ABC, which is tied with Milwaukee for the fourth-most nationally-televised contests in the NBA.
The first two games to leak are likely the two most notable: the Sixers open the season on October 18th in Boston, where they face the Celtics in what will be the first game of the NBA season played by any teams. Additionally, they will once again face the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden in the first game of the league’s Christmas Day slate.
Additionally, the Sixers’ home opener is a tough battle, as they’ll host the Bucks. Everything evens out, but opening the season with Boston and Milwaukee is about as tough as it gets.
A new facet of the NBA schedule is something the league has dubbed “Rivalry Week,” a string of days filled with nationally-televised matchups between teams and/or players with current or budding rivalries. The Sixers are one of a few teams with multiple Rivalry Week games, as they host the Brooklyn Nets for the second time (we’ll get to the first time soon, trust me) as well as reigning back-to-back MVP Nikola Jokic and his Denver Nuggets.
The game you really want to know about
I’ve written enough words about this schedule without addressing the most highly-anticipated date on it: on Tuesday, November 22nd, the Sixers will host the Brooklyn Nets in a contest that is expected to be the first in which former Sixer Ben Simmons faces his old team, in an arena in which the raucous will be unquantifiable.