NBA Schedule This Week: Your Guide to the Best Week 1 Games on TV

Welcome to … the new NBA column from CableTV.com. Every week, I’ll give you my suggestions for the best NBA games to watch, and why. I’ll map out the week’s full schedule. And last but not least, you’ll get my scorching hot takes.

This column won’t be detailed video breakdowns of the New York Knicks’ defensive schemes, or how many pick-and-rolls Luka Doncic and LeBron James run. I’m not Zach Lowe (despite the reference to him I made at the start of this intro). I’ll talk some about on-court stuff, but mainly through the lens of why certain teams and players are must-see TV.

I’ll also try my best to recap some of the most interesting, funny, frustrating, or downright maddening moments from the previous week. While I can’t watch every game, I do keep pretty good tabs on the league at large.

So without further ado, here’s what you should be checking out during the first week of the 2025–2026 NBA season.

Jump to:

• National NBA game of the week
• NBA League Pass game of the week
• NBA schedule this week
• League news and analysis

National NBA game of the week

Honorable mention: 

• San Antonio Spurs at Dallas Mavericks (Wednesday, Oct. 22, 9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).

NBA League Pass game of the week

Honorable mention: 

• Detroit Pistons at Chicago Bulls (Wednesday, Oct. 22, 8:00 p.m. ET).

What NBA games are on TV this week?

I feel pretty good about my recommendations for Week 1 of the NBA season. But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna leave you hanging. I mapped out the entire schedule for the first week so you don’t have to spend precious time looking it up.

So if you’re not vibing with any of my picks, feel free to check out something from the TV schedule below.

Data effective as of post date.

Other thoughts on NBA Week 1

There will, of course, be plenty of fun and compelling NBA basketball to watch—not just in the first week, but throughout the season. I’m going to be very tuned into that as a fan and the occasional pickup player.

But I’ll be most intrigued about how the NBA’s new media deal changes the viewing experience day in and day out.

Inside the NBA will be on ESPN now. ESPN is owned by Disney, which might not love some of the humor Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O’Neal frequently engage in. A huge part of why Inside is considered the best postgame show in the business is the interactions among those four. If that’s curtailed because they’re on a Disney-owned platform, it might not be as fun to watch.

For what it’s worth, ESPN President of Content Burke Magnus recently said, “Fans should expect the same great show they’re accustomed to watching.” We’ll see if that promise is kept.

Then there’s the Amazon Prime Video and Peacock portions of the deal. These are new platforms for the NBA. There’s gonna be a lot of attention paid to lag times, score bugs, real-time features, quirky and experimental coverage and analysis, and so on.

Change is inevitable, but without care and forethought, it might ultimately be bad. The NBA is already adding some extra difficulty—and cost—to watching games this season and in the foreseeable future. I’m interested to see if the actual viewing experience has improved or has somehow become cumbersome. And of course, I’ll give my opinions in this column on anything interesting I come across.

NBA schedule this week FAQ

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