Two days out from the full NBA schedule release, NBC announced several details of its NBA return — including its announce teams for Opening Night.
NBC announced Tuesday that Mike Tirico, Reggie Miller and Jamal Crawford are scheduled to call the network’s first NBA game in more than 22 years, Rockets-Thunder on Opening Night October 21. Noah Eagle and Grant Hill are set to handle the second game of the Opening Night doubleheader, Warriors-Lakers.
When NBC set Miller and Crawford as co-lead analysts last year, it was unclear how often they would work together or if they would alternate between the network’s top two play-by-play voices, Tirico and Eagle. For at least one night, it will be the former.
Zora Stephenson is listed as the sideline reporter for Game 1 and Ashley ShahAhmadi for Game 2, with both games having their own separate on-site studio team — Maria Taylor, Carmelo Anthony and Vince Carter from Oklahoma City and Ahmed Fareed and Tracy McGrady from Los Angeles.
In addition to the Opening Night doubleheader, which had been previously reported last week, NBC is also scheduled to carry a Martin Luther King Day tripleheader of Thunder-Cavaliers at 2:30 PM ET, Mavericks-Knicks at 5:00 and Celtics-Pistons — opposite college football’s national championship — at 8:00. Including a Peacock game (Bucks-Hawks at 1 PM, overlapping with Thunder-Cavaliers), it will be a quadrupleheader.
NBC also announced several previously unreported details of its game packages on Monday. The network’s Tuesday games will be branded as “Coast 2 Coast Tuesday” with coverage preceded each week by a 30-minute pregame show on Peacock. (The “Coast to Coast” branding was once used on ESPN’s Friday NBA games.)
NBC’s “Sunday Night Basketball” package will debut on February 1, the weekend between the NFL conference championship games and Super Bowl, before starting in earnest on February 22. The series will run through April 5, with occasional doubleheaders during the eight week run. The one-hour pregame show that will precede the Sunday night package will be on-site.
Finally, the Monday slate of Peacock exclusive games — titled “Peacock NBA Monday” — will sometimes consist of three games, with a 30-minute pregame leading in.
In other NBA scheduling news, ESPN will carry games on the Thursday of Opening Week for the first time, filling a window that in past years would have been occupied by TNT. The network’s October 23 doubleheader will open with an NBA Finals rematch between the Thunder and Pacers, followed by Nuggets-Warriors.
Thursday nights are earmarked for Amazon in the new media rights deal, but not until the streamer’s Thursday Night Football package concludes in January. Until that point, Amazon games are likely to take place primarily on Friday nights.
ESPN opens its season with its usual Wednesday doubleheader on October 22 (Cavaliers-Knicks and Spurs-Mavericks). Expect the TNT NBA studio team of Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal to work both nights, as Opening Week is one of the events included in ESPN’s licensing deal for “Inside the NBA.”
