New York Knicks: 2013-14 Schedule Release

The National Basketball Association (NBA) finally released the schedules for the upcoming 2013-14 regular season after a delay of a few days. I was very excited to get my first glimpse of the schedule for my favorite team, the New York Knicks, and I was left feeling excited and optimistic after reviewing it.

 

The Knicks will open up the regular season at home in “The World’s Most Famous Arena”, Madison Square Garden, against the upstart Milwaukee Bucks on October 30th. They have their road opener the next evening, Halloween night, in Chicago to face Derrick Rose and the Bulls.

 

The team also announced today that they have signed free agent point guard Beno Udrih to a contract for the veterans’ minimum salary (www.si.com).  This is an important move for the Knicks because they needed depth at that position with Raymond Felton and Pablo Prigioni the only other point guards on the roster.

 

Scheduling Positives

 

The positive aspects of this schedule of games are that New York has balance in the schedule especially early:

  • New York has 14 of their first 28 games through Christmas Day at home
  • The Knicks will play on national television often during the season which creates a lot of off days and space in their schedule to accommodate the national TV schedule for ESPN -ABC, and TNT.
  • The Knicks have early games against tough top tier playoff caliber teams like the San Antonio Spurs, Houston Rockets, and Indiana Pacers all at home at MSG, where they are a difficult team to beat in their own arena.
  • The Knicks have a stretch of 8 games in a row at home starting on January 17th against the Clippers which will see them host the Brooklyn Nets, Philadelphia 76ers, Charlotte Bobcats, Lakers, Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers, and LeBron James and the world champion Miami Heat. This team can win several of those games and it could be a great time to solidify their division standing.

 

Scheduling Negatives

The negative aspects of the schedule are that New York plays several top Western Conference teams early in the schedule (Houston, Los Angeles Clippers, Memphis Grizzlies, Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Denver Nuggets) I would rather play those games toward the middle part of the season in January. In that respect, the team is in the flow of the season and can handle those games differently.

 

Some other negative aspects:

  • The road trips are spaced out but they are longer in length
  • Late November trip is the first big test for this team with stops in Washington, Portland, LA to play the Clippers, and Denver. That looks like a 1 win trip to me if things go badly.
  • The January trip to Texas is going to be brutal: Spurs on January 2nd, then the next night in Houston to play Dwight Howard and the Rockets, and then one day off and at Dallas on the 5th
  • The February trip is not going to be easy with the Thunder, the Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans, Orlando Magic, and the Atlanta Hawks. The Knicks should win the middle two games because the Pelicans and the Magic are both rebuilding at this point, but the other three games are rough. I will have more on this trip later.
  • March has two road trips interjected with 5 home games. The first trip is to Chicago, Detroit, and Minnesota they have home games in between against tough Eastern teams such as Milwaukee and Indiana
  • The big trip in March is the Western trip of 5 games late in the month: Lakers on March 25th, Sacramento Kings on the 26th , then Phoenix, Golden State Warriors and wrapping up in Utah on March 31st. That is a long, difficult trip late in the season against teams that play well at home.

 

Schedule Highlights

 

The schedule features some big games and some “must watch” games for the fans of the team including the following:

 

  • A playoff series rematch against the Indiana Pacers at MSG on November 20th
  • December 5th at Brooklyn to face the new-look rival Nets with Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Jason Terry to complement Deron Williams and Joe Johnson.
  • The Knicks will be a part of the NBA extravaganza on Christmas Day with a game at MSG against the Thunder. The two teams played a drama filled close game last year out in Oklahoma City – the league hopes it will get that same performance at 2:30 PM as this game is the lead in game for the feature game of the holiday: Heat vs. Lakers at 5 PM (both games on ABC)
  • LeBron James and the Heat come to MSG on Thursday, January 9, 2014
  • The Knicks will play their traditional MLK Day matinee game this year against the Nets at MSG at 2:30 PM – that is going to be a great game!
  • The Knicks will visit Kobe Bryant and the new look Lakers on January 26th which is a Sunday at 3:30 in a game televised on ABC
  • They play at Miami on February 1st
  • Knicks visit the Thunder on Sunday, February 9th at 1 pm on ABC
  • Knicks again visit Miami in a Thursday night TNT game on February 27th
  • They host the rival Nets on April 2nd   which could have playoff implications
  • They play Miami again on April 6th which is a 1 PM Sunday ABC game
  • Knicks host the Bulls on another Sunday matinee at 1 PM on April 13th
  • They finish the series with the rival Nets in Brooklyn on April 15th
  • The regular season ends at home against Toronto on April 16th

 

Schedule Fluke

 

In a weird scheduling move the Knicks will travel to Oklahoma City to play the Thunder on February 9th and then come home to play the Kings on February 12th. Then they will go back on the road to Memphis, New Orleans, Orlando, and Atlanta.

 

This is strange because most of the time, the NBA tries to schedule the travel to certain regions around the same time. The three reasons for this weird trip out and then back to New York only for one game, could be:

  1. It could have been done to fit within the national TV schedule to put the Thunder game on ABC on a Sunday if that is what the network wanted
  2. It could be an arena availability issue with the other teams which pushed that trip off a few more days.
  3. The Kings only come out to the East Coast about twice a season so they needed to “shoe horn” in the game in NY against the Kings on the 12th

 

The schedule fluke could provide the Knicks some issues because that is a lot of travel in a condensed amount of time.

 

End Analysis

I think the Knicks schedule is spaced out well to give this team of mostly veteran players the adequate rest they will need to be prepared for these games. I have seen much more difficult schedules for the Knicks in my many years of following the team.

I am very excited for the upcoming season, and I look forward to the tip off against Milwaukee on October 30th.  I think this Knicks team should remain a top tier team in the Eastern Conference and have a chance to contend for a NBA Championship.

 

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