Daily Newsletter: NBA Opening Night Preview (Oct. 22 2024)
The calendar has flipped to the fall season, and with that comes the arrival of the NBA season once again. We are graced with an Opening Night double-header as the New York Knicks travel to Boston to take on the defending NBA Champion Celtics tipping off at 7:30 ET. Following that, we have the Los Angeles Lakers at home against the Minnesota Timberwolves tipping off at 10:00 ET. Both games will be broadcast on TNT.
Hang the Banner
The Boston Celtics will be hanging banner number 18 in the TD Garden tonight before their game tips off. They were utterly dominant a year ago, and we can expect mostly the same this season. They are overwhelming favorites to win the title once again – listed at +310 across the sportsbooks. They’re installed as 6 point favorites tonight against the New York Knicks – after posting an average winning margin of over 11 points during the 2023 season. Boston is notorious for being tough to tackle on opening night. Dating back to 2009, they’re 10-4 ATS in opening games. Kristaps Porzingis will not be playing tonight, but other than that the Celtics will be fully healthy in this game.
As for the Knicks, it was a completely opposite off-season for them with management searching for a way to help their roster take that next step. Their solution was to make a monster trade just weeks before the season – shipping out Donte DiVincenzo and Julius Randle for Karl-Anthony Towns. Towns has experience playing under Tom Thibodeau in Minnesota and it feels like a natural fit for him to be playing alongside a great point guard in Jalen Brunson. So much of today’s NBA offenses are predicated on pick and roll, while the Brunson/KAT PNR was absolutely lethal in the pre-season. Mitchell Robinson will be out for the Knicks tonight, allowing KAT to handle a lot of the Center minutes. While I expect Boston to win this game on their home floor, I’m looking for KAT to get off to a fast start in his first game as a Knick.
History Will Be Made
As I noted in the title of this section, it’s likely that history is made tonight when a father/son duo shares the court in an NBA game for the first time ever. The NBA G League doesn’t start until the beginning of November, paving the way for Bronny James to share the court with his father in his NBA debut. Brian Windhorst has reported that this will likely occur at the start of the 2nd Quarter. Los Angeles is likely headed back to the play-in tournament this season due to their lack of overall depth. It’s also tough to count on both LeBron James and Anthony Davis to once again play maximum game volume – it’s more likely that they rest more this season. Speaking of Davis – I’m looking for him to get off to a fast start tonight. He will have to play a ton of minutes at Center while Rui Hachimura and LeBron operate at PF. He has historically crushed Rudy Gobert – scoring 30+ points vs him in four of their last five match-ups.
Expectations are sky-high for the Timberwolves this season after their surprise run to the WCF a year ago. Anthony Edwards will look to take another leap, while the team will likely have to adjust to losing Towns and adding in both Randle and DiVincenzo. The coaching staff has alluded to scaling back the minutes for Mike Conley this season in hopes to have him healthy come play-off time. DiVincenzo operated primarily as the back-up PG in the pre-season and I’m expecting him to have a big role to start the season. He also is clearly motivated to have a good season after being traded. LeBron has a pretty poor record in season openers over the last few years, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see them upset the Wolves here with it taking some time to adjust to their new pieces and rotation.
Written by Ben Hossler