Look at our schedule through December. Eastern Conference teams play 30 games against the Western Conference. Our schedule seems to lighten up when we play Philly on Dec. 19, our 26th game of the season. Up to that point, we play 11 games against Western playoff teams, and one against the Lakers (which we lost). We only play three home games against non-playoff teams. Extend this through to end of the calender year, and we will have played 16 of our 30 Western Conference games in the first 1/3 of the season. By this time, we will have played Golden State, Portland, Phoenix, and Memphis twice and never have to face them the rest of the year.
The bad news is that our record through 25 games is going to be absolutely horrendous, and there is NOTHING we can do about that. Even when this team is clicking, beating the likes of Memphis, Portland, Golden State, Dallas, Chicago, and other teams was going to be a long shot. We sit at 4-7 right now, and it's looking like that win percentage may drop from there. This team is battered right now, but guys will start to get healthy and hopefully they will gel a little bit, and we'll capitalize on games that we should be able to win from there.
However, this is one of the very few scenarios where a playoff team really shouldn't be all that alarmed by an 8-17 start to the season, because the next seven games would be @Philly, Utah, Denver @Milwaukee, @OKC (gulp), Orlando, and Milwaukee. 6 of these 7 games should be very easy wins, and we should be absolutely ashamed if we don't capitalize on 5 of them over that stretch.
Other things going in our favor after December:
-After the game in Houston on December 31st, we play only two games in the Western Conference between then and the All-Star break. Only 6 of those 20 games are played against Western teams, and the schedule altogether looks extremely light. This is where we hit our groove for sure.
-We have a tough schedule the week after the All-Star break, and after that, only 7 of the final 20 games are against playoff caliber teams. There's a string of games out west in March, but the only tough one is LAC. The rest figure to be out of the playoff race. All in all, our schedule is a breeze after December 17th. This team is probably going to suck for a while longer, but playing the top of the Western Conference night in and night out isn't lasting all season. It's probably going to take till mid-January to cross .500, but that's what happens when you have the toughest schedule of any competitive Eastern Conference team.
Look at our Strength of Schedule as of 11/19
There is one team in the top 14 that was expected to be a semi-competitive Eastern Conference team, and that's us at #5. Cleveland sits at #15, and all the other semi-competitive EC teams sit in the 20s, with the exception of Miami (#19).
Even with last year's group, we weren't going .500 through this stretch. I'm glad we're getting all of these games out of the way now, so that we have time to hit our stride and tear it up the rest of the regular season. I'm still confident we're a top 5 team in the conference. We just have to weather the storm till the schedule lightens up. If we can win 5 of the next 14, that puts us at 9-16 once we start playing non-playoff teams. To reach 46 wins (my goal for this team), we'd need to go 37-20 (65%) the rest of the way. We finished last season 28-16 (64%) with a much tougher schedule and a less talented roster. That's still attainable assuming this team can start to gather some steam.
Date Opponent Time
Oct. 29 Milwaukee 7:00 W
Nov. 1 Memphis 7:00 L
Nov. 2 at New York 7:30 L
Nov. 4 at New Orleans 8:00 L
Nov. 5 Miami 7:00 W
Nov. 7 Atlanta 7:00 W
Nov. 9 at Los Angeles 9:30 L
Nov. 11 at Portland 10:00 L
Nov. 14 at Phoenix 9:00 W
Nov. 15 at Golden State 10:30 L
Nov. 17 Dallas 7:00 L
Nov. 19 at Indiana 7:00
Nov. 21 Orlando 7:00
Nov. 23 at Miami 6:00
Nov. 24 Los Angeles 7:00
Nov. 26 Portland 7:00
Nov. 28 Golden State 7:00
Nov. 29 at Atlanta 7:30
Dec. 3 Chicago 7:00
Dec. 5 New York 7:00
Dec. 10 Boston 7:00
Date Opponent Time
Dec. 12 at Memphis 8:00
Dec. 13 Brooklyn 7:00
Dec. 15 at Cleveland 7:00
Dec. 17 Phoenix 7:00
Dec. 19 at Philadelphia 7:00
Dec. 20 Utah 7:00
Dec. 22 Denver 7:00
Dec. 23 at Milwaukee 8:00
Dec. 26 at Oklahoma City 8:00
Dec. 27 Orlando 7:00
Dec. 29 Milwaukee 7:00
Dec. 31 at Houston 7:00
Jan. 2 Cleveland 7:00
Jan. 3 at Orlando 7:00
Jan. 5 at Boston 7:30
Jan. 7 New Orleans 7:00
Jan. 8 at Toronto 7:30
Jan. 10 at New York 1:00
Jan. 14 San Antonio 7:00
Jan. 17 Indiana 7:00
Jan. 19 Minnesota 2:00
Date Opponent Time
Jan. 21 Miami 7:00
Jan. 23 at Cleveland 7:30
Jan. 24 New York 7:00
Jan. 28 at San Antonio 8:30
Jan. 31 at Denver 9:00
Feb. 2 at Washington 7:00
Feb. 5 Washington 7:00
Feb. 7 at Philadelphia 7:30
Feb. 8 Indiana 6:00
Feb. 10 Detroit 7:00
Feb. 21 Oklahoma City 7:00
Feb. 22 at Dallas 7:30
Feb. 25 at Chicago 8:00
Feb. 27 at Boston 7:30
Mar. 1 at Orlando 6:00
Mar. 3 Los Angeles 7:00
Mar. 4 at Brooklyn 7:30
Mar. 6 Toronto 7:00
Mar. 8 at Detroit 6:00
Mar. 9 Washington 7:00
Mar. 11 Sacramento 7:00
Date Opponent Time
Mar. 13 Chicago 7:00
Mar. 16 at Utah 9:00
Mar. 17 at Los Angeles 10:30
Mar. 20 at Sacramento 10:00
Mar. 22 at Minnesota 7:00
Mar. 23 at Chicago 8:00
Mar. 25 Brooklyn 7:00
Mar. 27 at Washington 7:00
Mar. 28 Atlanta 7:00
Mar. 30 Boston 7:00
Apr. 1 Detroit 7:00
Apr. 3 at Indiana 7:00
Apr. 4 Philadelphia 7:00
Apr. 7 at Miami 7:30
Apr. 8 Toronto 7:00
Apr. 10 at Atlanta 7:30
Apr. 12 at Detroit 3:30
Apr. 13 Houston 7:00
Apr. 15 at Toronto 8:00
