Which NBA teams have the toughest stretches of schedule this season?
The most difficult 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, 9-, and 10-game stretches of the year
The NBA finally, at long last, released the entirety of its 1,230 game schedule last week. It took me a little while to figure out what I wanted to write about it, because so many people do so much analysis so quickly.
Being that we focus on the entire league here, I wanted to make sure it was a leaguewide story. I eventually landed on looking at specific stretches of each team’s slate, trying to find out who has the toughest and easiest spans of games during the season.
You can find plenty of season-long strength of schedule analysis, as well as things like rest advantages and disadvantages, at the essential Positive Residual. And I’m sure you can find team-specific stuff on any of the various excellent blogs and Substacks that are out there.
But I think I’m providing something relatively new here, and I’ve got a lot of interesting tidbits to share. We’ll start with the toughest stretches of schedule today, then continue with the easiest stretches early next week.
Indiana’s five-game gauntlet where the Pacers play against teams with an average over-under of 53.7 (!!!) wins comes in the midst of a nine-game stretch where they square off exclusively against teams that are projected by Vegas to finish above .500. Playing three consecutive games against the Thunder and Celtics will do that to ya.
The Magic, though, may have an even tougher stretch of schedule than that Pacers gauntlet, despite the average over-under of their opponents being nearly a full win lower (52.8) than the one the Pacers face here (53.7).
In a seven-game span during January, the Magic face seven consecutive teams whose over-under is above 50 wins: Knicks, Wolves, Bucks, Sixers, Bucks, Celtics, Nuggets. That is R-O-U-G-H stuff.
The Nuggets' six-game stretch where their opponents average an over-under of 53.0 wins includes two games against opponents below 50, but sees them play the Celtics, the Thunder twice, and the Wolves in the other four games.
Just before the end of the season, the Suns have an absolute murderer’s row of a 10-game schedule wherein the play against the Cavs, Bucks, Celtics, Wolves, Rockets, Bucks, Celtics, Knicks, Warriors, and Thunder all in a row. That group has an average over-under of 51.5 wins, making it the single-toughest 10-game stretch any team faces all season by an incredible 1.6 wins — the same as the distance between the second-toughest stretch and the 10th-toughest.
Meanwhile, the Warriors face a 17-game stretch spanning from the end of November through early January where they play exactly ONE team with an over/under below .500 — and that team is the Clippers, whose over/under is set at 40.5 wins. That’s more than 20% of their schedule!
The Sixers have a roughly similar 15-game stretch from mid-January through early February; but it includes a game against the Bulls, whose over-under is just 27.5 wins. Beyond that one game, though, it is really tough for the Sixers for a while, right before the All-Star break.
Finally, this might be confusing phrasing, but the easiest 10-game stretch among the each team’s toughest 10-game stretch belongs to the Knicks. You can see in the table above that their toughest 10-game stretch of the year sees them play against teams with an over-under of just 46.3 wins — tied with the Spurs for the lowest in the league and more than five games lower than the aforementioned Suns stretch.
Starting just before the All-Star break and continuing after it, the Knicks get to face the Hawks and Bulls in the midst of a span where they play just two teams with an over-under above 50 wins: the Celtics and 76ers, with two days of rest in between.
The toughest games in the remainder of that stretch are against the Pacers, Cavs, and Grizzlies. Those are good teams, but it’s nothing like the tougher stretches of schedule for the teams we ran through above.
San Antonio’s similar stretch sees the Spurs play double-headers against the Lakers, Grizzlies, and Pacers amidst games against the Bucks (first game), Heat, Clippers, and then Bucks again (10th game). In terms of the concentration of opponents, I think it’s certainly the weirdest stretch any team has this season.
If you click through the table above and ask me (via email or Twitter) about a specific stretch for a certain team, I’d be happy to share similar screenshots to provide the dates and opponents that comprise that part of the schedule.
Absolutely love stuff like this. I know it's done occasionally but I also think long road stretches, favorable home stretches are interesting. The clippers used to get totally screwed travel wise with Grammys etc but hopefully Intuit dome fixed that. Thanks Jared for the great work