Fixture released ahead of ratified labor agreementNEW YORK — The Los Angeles Lakers will play games on the first three nights of the NBA season, the first of 42 back-to-back-to-back sets of games that teams will face during this lockout-shortened season. The National Basketball Association announced the compacted, 66-game schedule Tuesday night, one that will require every team to play on three consecutive nights at least once. It will also force every team to navigate demanding stretches that are never seen during a full season, such as the nine games in 12 nights the Atlanta Hawks face starting with their Dec. 27 opener. The league's 66th season begins with five games on Christmas, including the Lakers hosting the Chicago Bulls. Los Angeles then visits Sacramento the next night before returning home to host Utah on Dec. 27. Teams will play 48 conference games and 18 against the opposing conference, meaning they play only three nonconference opponents home and away. The league did preserve its most storied rivalry, with the Lakers traveling to Boston for a Feb. 9 matchup before the Celtics open a stretch of eight road games in 13 nights in March with games on back-to-back nights in Los Angeles. Dallas and Miami also will play twice, following their NBA Finals rematch on Christmas with a March 12 game in Miami. The Heat and Lakers also play two games. The NBA's only other shortened season in 1999, which was 50 games long, featured 64 sets of back-to-back-to-back games and was plagued by sloppy basketball being played on fatigued legs. The NBA faces a similar predicament now after failing to reach a new labor deal in time to save the Nov. 1 start to the season. Instead, a tentative agreement was reached on Nov. 26. Lawyers for the owners and players are still finalizing the rest of the deal, with both sides expected to vote on it Thursday before training camps and free agency open Friday. Aging teams such as the Celtics, Lakers and NBA champion Mavericks will have to pace themselves, while younger teams such as Oklahoma City figure to be better prepared for the grind. “You're not going to have those breaks of three or four days that you sometimes got in the old 82-game schedule, when it was the normal regular schedule,” former NBA coach and current analyst Mike Fratello said during the schedule announcement on NBA TV. “Now with everything being compacted, games come that much more quickly, you've got to gear up back up again, you move onto the next one immediately.” The Denver Nuggets, hit hard by free agency with three of their players in China, face another difficult obstacle in the schedule. They play five games in six nights spanning the new year, including a home-and-home set with the Lakers on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
