0 of 6
Jesse D. Garrabrant / NBAE photo via Getty Images
On Wednesday, just two weeks before the start of the second half of the NBA season, the league released the schedule for the final nine weeks of the 2020-21 campaign. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the inevitability of losing games, the league originally created the two-part schedule, giving itself space to adjust quickly.
In the first half, several teams had their entire weeks wiped out because of positive coronavirus tests or concerns about contact tracking. Some games that were scheduled for the second half have already been compensated on days off in the first half.
The second half’s schedule is even more compressed than the first half, with some teams having to make an odd amount of confrontations due to postponements in the first half. In other words, some teams will have a more difficult life than others.
Here are the winners and losers of the league’s announcement on Wednesday.
1 of 6
Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press
Anthony Davis is not expected to return before the All-Star break, and there is no guarantee that he will be ready to return. Achilles-related injuries are nothing to play with, and the Lakers clearly care more about making sure he’s healthy for the playoffs than getting the No. 1 seed at the Western Conference.
Fortunately, their schedule after the break starts very smoothly. Four of his first five games are at home, and his only road fight on that stretch is in San Francisco against the Golden State Warriors (which takes place after two days off).
His first two games, against the Indiana Pacers and the Warriors, are his only matches against teams above -500 in the first week. The next three will be against Minnesota Timberwolves, Charlotte Hornets and Atlanta Hawks, all teams that they should be able to win without Davis.
After that, the Lakers embarked on a two-game trip before ending March with four more home games, including against Eastern Conference lottery teams at the Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers.
Even though Davis takes a little longer than expected to return, the Lakers should be able to keep up very well and prepare to enter the playoffs at full strength.
2 of 6
Brandon Dill / Associated Press
Almost all teams have had their games affected by the league’s health and safety protocols, but some have been hit particularly hard and are paying the price in the rear.
The Memphis Grizzlies second half schedule includes 40 games, a seven-game trip and 11 consecutive games.
The San Antonio Spurs also has 40 games ahead of them in the 68 days until the start of the tournament, including seven consecutive games.
The Washington Wizards, which had the league’s first high-profile stoppage, have 38 games and seven consecutive games.
The NBA will not allow a scenario like last year’s truncated regular season, where even after the eight “sowing games” in the bubble, not all teams had played the same number of matches. This year, everyone should reach 72 in one way or another, even if it means that some teams will have to play brutal games in the second half.
And that before taking into account the postponements in the second half. Hopefully, as vaccine distribution increases across the country, this will become less of an issue in the playoffs. The first half of the season showed us that nothing is guaranteed, but these teams are already playing in the back due to the blows they have already suffered in their schedules.
3 of 6
Phelan M. Ebenhack / Associated Press
The Golden State Warriors are currently between 17-15, which puts them in eighth place in the Western Conference. They have a game advantage over the Dallas Mavericks, ninth place, but only three games ahead of the 11th New Orleans Pelicans.
With the new NBA play-in format for the final two seeds at each conference, marginal playoff teams have a small margin of error, and a bad week can make a team go beyond the advantage of playing at home to be outside, looking at the project prospects.
Fortunately for the Warriors, the planners were kind to them after all. Their last six matches are at home and the opponent is favorable.
They start with two consecutive games against Oklahoma City Thunder, which should be in full tank mode by then. Next comes Utah Jazz, which will probably have seed # 1 locked and may not be playing for everyone; a difficult game against the Phoenix Suns, who must also fight for a position in the playoffs; and they close with games against the New Orleans Pelicans and Memphis Grizzlies, the last of which will be ending an extremely difficult and compressed schedule to make up for all of its postponements.
Assuming they remain healthy, the Warriors will have many opportunities to put themselves in a good position before entering the game – and immediately become the low seed that none of the teams with the highest seeds want to face in the first round.
4 of 6
Phelan M. Ebenhack / Associated Press
The New York Knicks are trying to reach the playoffs for the first time in eight seasons. With a week to go for the All-Star break, they are at the edge of the post-season image.
The Knicks are currently in a 3-0 draw with the Chicago Bulls and Charlotte Hornets for seventh place in the East. They are only half a game behind the Boston Celtics for sixth place, which would allow them to avoid the game tournament, but they are only half a game ahead of 10th place Miami Heat.
Except for a serious injury, this race could last until the last week of the season, and the Knicks’ schedule to end it is brutal. They start in May with a six-game trip that starts with a back-to-back in Houston and Memphis and ends with games against four playoff teams at the Nuggets, Suns, Clippers and Lakers.
They return home for the last two games of the season, which are against the Hornets and the Celtics – two of the teams for which they are in a close qualifying dispute.
The fate of the Knicks will be decided in these two weeks, and their path to the playoffs will not be easy. There may be a narrow margin between avoiding the play-in tournament and losing the playoffs entirely.
The Knicks have been one of the surprise success stories of the season so far, but they have a tough road ahead of them to keep the victory and return to the playoffs.
5 of 6
Michael Dwyer / Associated Press
It’s no surprise that the two teams with the most matches broadcast nationally in the second half of the season are the Lakers with 21 and the Nets with 20, according to ESPN Stats & Info.
Planners must have built a slightly longer recovery time for Davis (see above), because the Lakers have only one ESPN game in the first two weeks and no TNT games until March 23. Until then, Davis hopes to be back.
Brooklyn, meanwhile, starts the second half with a home game against the Celtics on TNT and faces the Knicks four days later on ESPN.
The Nets’ season has been full of stops and starts since switching to James Harden. Kevin Durant has already lost 14 games due to several passages in the health and safety protocol and minor injuries. But they have been thrilling to watch when Durant, Harden and Kyrie Irving are all healthy, and fans will have plenty of opportunities to see them on national TV in the second half of the season.
Elsewhere on national TV programming, there are three Bucks-Sixers clashes that will be crucial in the seed run in the East, and stars like Damian Lillard, Zion Williamson and Luka Doncic will have plenty of exposure. Even Charlotte Hornets, who is often overlooked but now has a star forming at LaMelo Ball, will be at TNT against Brooklyn on April 1.
6 of 6
Mike Stobe / Associated Press
The compressed second half schedule is heavy on clashes and travel, leaving players with little time to recover. Injuries are probably inevitable, which is unfortunate.
The only way for playoff teams to avoid this is to sit their star players on some of the most difficult parts of the schedule to make sure they are healthy for the playoffs.
This is an inevitable truth of the calendar, as well as in the 2011-12 offside season, which has also accumulated many games in a short time and has shown an increase in injuries. In the nine seasons since then, teams have become much more advanced in terms of player rest, and it won’t be a surprise if teams rest their best players more than normal.
As much as it makes sense from the point of view of health, it is a bore for fans. This is already a strange and conflicting season due to the realities of the pandemic, inconsistent policies in different cities about allowing fans in the arenas and uncertainty about when things will return to normal.
Add the higher than normal probability that a landmark match will not feature, say, Stephen Curry or Giannis Antetokounmpo, and there can be many disappointing games in the second half of the season.