After months of waiting, the 2025-26 NBA Schedule is finally here.
The NBA has been releasing tidbits of the schedule over the last week, including Christmas games that the Denver Nuggets will participate in. Major national television matchups have been revealed as well, but it wasn’t until today that the full schedule has been revealed.
As expected, the Nuggets will play 82 games (though only 80 have been assigned due to the NBA Cup tournament rules).
Beginning with a primetime matchup on the road against the Golden State Warriors and wrapping up with a season finale against the San Antonio Spurs, here’s the full Denver Nuggets schedule:
Quick Takeaways
Big time Matchups
Notable matchups that Nuggets fans will want to circle on their calendars:
- Thursday, October 23rd @ Golden State Warriors in the season opener
- Saturday, October 25th vs Phoenix Suns in the home opener
- Friday, November 21st @ Houston Rockets on Prime, the first matchup against Kevin Durant and his new team
- Thursday, December 25th vs Minnesota Timberwolves on Christmas
- Tuesday, January 20th vs Los Angeles Lakers on NBC is the first matchup against LeBron James and Luka Doncic of the year
- Sunday, February 1st vs Oklahoma City Thunder on NBC is the first matchup against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the NBA champs
New Television Partners
With TNT saying goodbye to the NBA, Nuggets fans will now have to find games in three different places than before: NBC, Peacock, and Amazon Prime. Peacock is NBC’s online streaming service, and one of Denver’s first games of the year against the Minnesota Timberwolves will be shown on there.
Here are the national games broken down by broadcaster:
- ABC/ESPN: 1
- ABC: 3
- ESPN: 8, but after the season opener, Denver isn’t on ESN exclusively until Jan 14
- NBC: 6
- Peacock: 3
- Prime: 5
In total, the Nuggets have 26 national television games, which ranks seventh across the NBA.
Home vs Road Splits
Denver will play a schedule that is fairly unbalanced this year with a lot of travel. Yes, the number of home and road games are the same, but when and how they occur is of major importance. For example, the Nuggets will go on a seven-game road trip across the Eastern Conference immediately following their Christmas game in Denver.
Here’s the breakdown by month:
- October – 2 at home, 3 on road
- November – 7 at home, 7 on road
- December – 5 at home, 7 on road
- January – 8 at home, 9 on road
- February – 4 at home, 7 on road
- March – 10 at home, 5 on road
- April – 4 at home, 2 on road
That is an incredible split. Denver’s going to seem like they’re on the road all season until March. It may end up being an exhausting season for that reason.
Back-to-Backs
The Nuggets will play 16 back-to-backs this year, the same as last season. The NBA is often working toward trying to find additional rest, but the Nuggets didn’t benefit from that this time around. Again, it’s going to be an exhausting year. The Nuggets will have to use their depth.
Every team will have to play 82 games, but not every schedule is make equally. This seems like a very difficult year for the Nuggets from a travel and rest perspective in comparison to last year. How they handle it will be interesting.
