Mavericks’ schedule released: it’s challenging from the start

The Mavericks certainly won’t have much time to get their feet wet when the regular season opens on Oct. 25 at San Antonio.

The NBA announced the season schedule Thursday and the Mavericks will have a challenging stretch right off the bat.

They play 10 of their first 16 games on the road, with 12 of the 16 opponents being teams that were either in the playoffs or the play-in tournament last season.

Clearly, they will have to hit the ground running, especially when they start the season at the Spurs and No. 1 overall draft pick Victor Wembanyama.

The Mavericks will be playing their 44^th NBA season with expectations far above the results of last season, when they missed the playoffs.

Coaches love to say that the schedule is what it is, with 41 home and 41 road games. But there are tough and less-tough sections of the six-month grind that leads up to what the Mavericks hope will be a playoff appearance.

They return a superstar duo in Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving, along with first-round draftees Dereck Lively II and O-Max Prosper. They also will have young, rising stars in Josh Green and Jaden Hardy that they are hoping take the next steps in their development.

They and their teammates will be tested early. After the trip to San Antonio, which will be on ESPN (8:30 p.m.), the home opener at American Airlines Center will be Oct. 27 against the Brooklyn Nets and former Mavericks Dorian Finney-Smith and Spencer Dinwiddie, who will be playing against the Mavericks for the first time since the trade for Irving in February.

Their schedule actually has bookend challenging portions. After the road-heavy beginning, the middle of the schedule features a lot of home games before they play 11 of their final 18 on the road.

They have a seven-game home stand in early January. They have three four-game road trips sprinkled through the season.

A few highlights:

• Defending NBA champion Denver will visit AAC early on Nov. 3 in the first game of group play in the in-season tournament. The Nuggets also will play at AAC on March 17 in a nationally televised game on ABC.
• As for the in-season tournament, the league will have games sprinkled in between those games. And all group-play games will count in the regular-season standings. In addition, teams that do not make the knockout round of the tournament will be assigned two games – played on Dec. 6 and 8. Every team will finish the season with 82 games played.
• LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers will visit AAC only once: Dec. 12 at 6:30 p.m.
• The Mavericks will be back on the five-game Christmas Day NBA slate, capping the holiday with a 9:30 visit to the Phoenix Suns. The Suns with Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal, come to AAC on Jan. 24 and Feb. 22.
• Among Eastern Conference highlights are Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks coming to AAC on Jan. 11., Giannis Antetokounmpo and Milwaukee visiting on Feb. 3 and reigning MVP Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers coming in March 3.

The Mavericks are set to play 28 nationally televised games – nine on ESPN, nine on NBA TV, eight on TNT and two on ABC in March – home games against Philadelphia on March 3 and Denver on March 17.

The local telecast schedule will be released at a later date.

One thing the Mavericks won’t have to deal with is a lot of back-to-back situations. They have only 13 back-to-backs. Of those, five are road-road, four are road-home and three are home-road. One requires no travel (home-home).

Fans can easily add the full season or home-game schedule to their calendar by going to mavs.com.

Single-game tickets will go on sale Aug. 31.

Twitter: @ESefko