One of the most exciting days of any off-season for sports fans is the day when the fixtures are announced. This is the time when the thought of the new season starts to get really real and you start plotting your team’s path to glory for the new campaign. For basketball fans, it is like the hours before Christmas Day with the fixtures being set to be officially announced at 6pm ET on NBATV on Wednesday the 13th of August.
Of course, you know what the media in America is like, some outlets get a scoop and some outlets will take a punt on some of the fixtures. If they are right, they won’t stop bragging about how they broke the news and if they are wrong, they forget about it all rather quickly. We’re not the sort of people that forget these things though and the New York Daily News has broken cover with some fixtures for the campaign.
According to the New York Daily News, the Knicks will begin their campaign against Chicago, they will travel to London to face Milwaukee and they will be squaring up against Washington at Christmas time.
The LA Times are another paper who have leaked some of the fixtures for the new season, and they even went public last week with the fact that the Clippers and the Warriors are set to clash at Christmas time. The paper believes that there will be a quintuple header taking place which will include the Clippers and the Warriors, the Knicks and Wizards games, the Cavaliers versus the Heat and the other game in the four is likely to be the Lakers versus the Bulls.
All local media is trying to grab an exclusive
It isn’t just newspapers that are getting in on the act, radio stations are also looking to break some stories and matchups. The Memphis radio character, Chris Vernons, stated that the grizzlies will start their new campaign at home versus the Timberwolves, in a game that is likely to see Andrew Wiggins make his debut. He also stated that Memphis are set to play Dallas in their annual MLK Day match.
While there is an expectancy that the opening night is going to feature the Cavaliers and the Spurs, there is some debate as to who will be the home team on this night. ESPN are standing apart from most outlets though because they believe that the Mavericks are taking on the Spurs on the opening night of the 2014/15 NBA season. The other game on opening night is tipped to feature the Los Angeles Clippers welcoming the Houston Rockets.
Now that the fixtures are in place, it makes the new season a lot more real and there is a focus for basketball betting fans. The betting markets for the 2014/15 NBA season will be coming to life very shortly, which ensures that basketball fans have plenty to look forward to. Whether you are happy to focus on the FIBA World Cup for the next month or you solely want to focus on the NBA this summer, you have the opportunity to do so.
At 3-1 down in the NBA Finals, many people predicted that the Cleveland Cavaliers would lie down, perhaps looking for the pain to be over and done with for another year. After all, they were facing the record breakers, the team that had shown themselves to be the best of the best by a good...