After learning on Monday who the Cleveland Cavaliers will face before the start of the 2023-24 NBA season, we now know how the entirety of the season will go. The Cavaliers will open up the 2023-24 NBA regular season on the road at Barclays Center against the Brooklyn Nets on Wednesday, October 25. Soon after, Cleveland opens at home on Friday, October 27 against the Oklahoma City Thunder. The home-opening game against Oklahoma City is the first game in a back-to-back for the Cavaliers, with the Indiana Pacers coming to Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse on Saturday, October 28.
Cleveland will also have 17 games on national television this season, an increase from their multiple appearances on ESPN, TNT and NBA TV last season. The Cavaliers’ first primetime game is Halloween Night on TNT at home against the New York Knicks. Cleveland’s two other appearances on TNT will be when the team is in Philadelphia to face the 76ers on November 21 and when they face the Grizzlies in Memphis on February 1. Their four appearances on ESPN will feature three games at home against the Milwaukee Bucks (January 17), Chicago Bulls (February 14) and the Knicks (March 3) and one road game in Philadelphia (February 23).
This season will also feature the Cavaliers going worldwide on multiple levels. Of course, there are always opportunities for when Cleveland crosses the border to face the Toronto Raptors, with the Cavaliers heading to The 6 on January 1 and February 10. But, Cleveland will also head to Paris on Thursday, January 11, 2024, to face the Brooklyn Nets in what Right Down Euclid is calling the Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot Cup. This regular season matchup will mark the Cavaliers’ first-ever game in Europe and the third internationally played game in the franchise’s history. Cleveland’s squad traveled to China in 2007 and Brazil in 2015 during preseason action.
The Cavaliers heading to Paris isn’t the only significant change coming the organization’s way this season. In mid-November, Cleveland will play in the inaugural In-Season Tournament will tip off on Friday, November 3 in NBA team markets and culminate with playing the Semifinals (December 7) and Championship (December 9) at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The 67 games across both stages of the In-Season Tournament will count toward the regular-season standings except the Championship. Each team will continue to play 82 regular-season games in the 2023-24 season, including those games that are part of Group Play and the Knockout Rounds. Fourteen Group Play games (two games on each Tournament Night) and all seven Knockout Round games will be televised nationally.
To determine each team’s opponents in the Group Play games, the 15 teams in each conference were divided into three groups of five teams via a random drawing. Before the drawing, each team was placed into a “pot” based on its record from the prior regular season. In each conference, one team from each pot was randomly selected into each of the three groups in that conference. The Cavaliers were placed into the Eastern Conference’s Group A, joining the Philadelphia 76ers, Atlanta Hawks, Detroit Pistons and Indiana Pacers. On Tuesday, Cleveland’s schedule was finalized for the inaugural regular season event:
The new tournament will likely become an NBA staple for every season from now on. But, for the Cavaliers to have high-stakes basketball all year long is a blessing in disguise for Cleveland fans. It starts with the in-season tournament and continues late into the season as Cleveland’s longest road trip spans five games over eight days from March 31 to April 7. The Cavaliers will also play 15 back-to-back sets of games this season (30 total) and will have to grind in a hyper-competitive Eastern Conference. There’s always plenty of room for theatrics in the NBA, and it’s extra fitting considering what sources tell Right Down Euclid what Cleveland’s City Edition threads will look like this year. But now the stage is set and the Cavaliers’ latest performance is about to begin.
Evan Dammarell is an award-winning sports journalist covering all things Cleveland right off the shores of Lake Erie. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. You can also email him at evan@downeuclid.com. He can also be found three to five times weekly on Locked On Cavs, a part of the Locked On Podcast Network.
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