NBA Schedule Release: Breaking down Atlanta Hawks 2025-26 schedule, key dates, best games, and more

NBA Schedule Release: Breaking down Atlanta Hawks 2025-26 schedule, key dates, best games, and more

On today’s show, the NBA schedule is now officially out. Every team has 80 games scheduled. That includes the Hawks. We’ll get into some of the highlights, some of the key dates, some of the games to watch, your questions, and more coming up. You are Locked On Hawks, your daily Atlanta Hawks podcast, part of the Locked Onet. Your team every day. Hello friends, welcome to episode 2038 of the Lot on Hawks podcast. I am your host Brad Roland coming to you on a Thursday afternooning here in mid August. And today’s podcast is brought to by the folks at Monarch Money. Take control your finances right now with Monarch Money and use code lockedNBA at monarchmoney.com for half off your first year. I also want to encourage you at the top of the show as I always do to make lock on Hawks your first listen each and every day. Check us out and subscribe to the podcast anywhere you get your podcasts. That includes Apple and Spotify. We are also on places like YouTube, for example. Please like this video as you are watching it and tell your friends, your colleagues, your family members, even your enemies about this podcast. It’s actually going to be our seventh episode of the month of August here on August 14th as I record this. That includes visits from Glenn Willis and Frank Madden. A lot of Trey Young extension talk, your mailbag questions, and much more on the pod. But today, we will be uh I would say centrally focused on the NBA schedule release. In the last, I don’t know, few days, there have been some leaks. The Hawks announced their exhibition schedule, the MLK day schedule came out, the Christmas schedule, some of the opening week schedules, but then finally at 3:15 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday afternoon, the league announced the full schedule for the season. Now, I said this in the intro, but only 80 games are actually scheduled because of the NBA Cup. There’s some dynamics in play there. You end up having to play 82. I promise you that, but only 80 of them are on the schedule right now. But there is a lot to get to about the Hawks. I will not go game by game. Even though I’m kind of tempted to do that, I won’t do that. But I have a lot of highlights, a lot of notes about the schedule. And again, rest assured, 82 games, maybe even 83 games. If the Hawks make it to Vegas again, and this time make the final of the NBA Cup. They actually play 83 games. We’ll talk about that later on in the podcast. But I want to begin at the very beginning of the schedule. And look, full caveats apply here. Um, I’m not going to tell you that any of this stuff is going to change the the trajectory of the season. Sometimes though, it can matter. Like if you get an injury at a wrong time, if you’re playing teams that um are banged up at the right time, like the way the NBA clumps these these games together, sometimes you might play an opponent three times in a month, and if they’re banged up, that’s an advantage to you. And vice versa. Same thing with, you know, the dregs of the league. Basically, when when you get to like March, if you’re playing the right teams at those times that maybe are banged up or not trying as much, kind of silly season at the end of the year, that can matter, too. So, that’s why we get into this stuff. But I will also say it matters how good you are much more than it matters when you’re playing the schedule that you’re actually playing. With that said, we were I think we’re going to learn a lot about the Hawks early in the season this year because of the schedule that they were given on Thursday. Uh the opening game of the year is actually a pretty friendly matchup. It’s actually the Toronto Raptors coming to State Farm Arena for the opener. Um that’s on the basically the general opening night is Wednesday, October 22nd. There’s a double header the day before that that the Hawks not going to be involved in nationally, but most of the league opens on that Wednesday. And the Raptors coming to town, that’s a game the Hawks will be favored in, I would imagine. And a good, I would say, way to ease into things a little bit. Not a not a gimme by any means. Toronto’s got some talent, but not a terribly tough matchup on opening night. But then from there, it gets harder. First time on the road is against Orlando. Orlando is going to be pretty good this year. It’s a road game against a divisional opponent and a rival opponent. Then it’s a back-to-back with travel to face the Oklahoma City Thunder at home. All right, welcome to the season. You face the reigning champs who are loaded again on a backto-back with travel. Not easy. Then you go on a four-ame road trip. You do have Brooklyn on that road trip and they’re very bad, but the rest of the schedule in that on that trip is Chicago, Indiana, and Cleveland. Chicago, Indiana, not great shakes, but Cleveland’s very good. And that’s also just road games. Then you come home for Orlando again. Tough game. You play Toronto again at home. not so bad. Then the Lakers, who are good, not probably as good as their actual moniker would suggest, but they’re certainly a talented team with LeBron, Luca, etc. Then you have a 4-ame West Coast trip, and then you have to play Detroit and San Antonio. So that’s the first 16 games. Only a couple of those will the Hawks be like comfortably favored. And you want to start strong. I’m not saying it’s going to change the whole season, but what you don’t want to do is start, you know, 5 and 11 and be looking up and like, what what happened here? Now, I’m not projecting that to happen, but certainly uh no favors given at the beginning of the season if you are the Hawks. Now, at the end of the season, the schedule is also pretty difficult. The last four games of the year are Knicks, at Cavs, home for Cavs, and then at Miami. So, four pretty tough games. I think I’m pretty low on Miami right now, but a road game in Miami, if both teams are trying at the end, is not really easy. And again, caveats apply here. You never know what teams will be playing like, what they will actually have incentive to play for, who’s going to be healthy in April, which is why I focus a little bit more on the beginning of the of the schedule, but the end of the schedule, not the most easy thing if the Hawks want to kind of press it all the way to the floor gas-wise to try to get a higher seed at the end of the season. The other big thing that everyone always asks about and kind of holds their breath about on the schedule is how many national TV games that a team might have. This year, the Hawks have announced they have 13 national TV games. Now, I always in the past have separated the ESPN and formerly TNT games from what used to be NBA TV. NBA TV was listed as a national TV game for by the NBA, but it was really not really not national. NBA TV, yes, that game would be shown out of market, but it was also on the local product and it was a very small bump as far as like exposure in that in that setting. Now the entire TV deal and TV landscape has changed around the NBA beginning this year. ESPN is still there but now the other partners and there are three instead of two are NBC and Peacock but primarily NBC who owns Peacock and then also Amazon Prime Video is the third with a full package on the NBA. So technically the Hawks have 13 games that are on national platforms. Three on ESPN, three on NBC, four on Peacock, and three on Amazon Prime. It is still a TBD. In fact, I heard from someone this week that knows things. Usually, uh, it is still TBD on whether those Peacock games and those Prime games are exclusively on those services or not. The Hawks in their announcement of the schedule today did include that games not exclusively on national platforms will still be televised and streamed by Fanatal Sports Network. That’s their uh regional network that has Bob Wrathman, Dominic Wilkins, etc. So obviously that’s the main place you will watch Hawks games this year if you were in a local market but it’s still kind of a TBD in the last edition of the NBA schedule. TNT games were almost always exclusive games so it would be only there. ESPN games a lot of those like maybe you could simoc cast you might have ESPN or FanDuel. NBA TV games NBA TV games were always on FanDuel as well. We don’t know about this time around so keep that in mind. But the Hawks have basically what I would say six traditional national games. Three on three on ESPN, three on NBC. Then you got three on Amazon. Amazon is um a standalone like certainly that. And then four on Peacock. And obviously Peacock is owned by NBC. That feels to me like kind of the secondary NBA TV like spot. Um this is more games than the Hawks have had on national platforms for a few years. So that’s a positive step forward. At the same time, I already saw Hawks fans mad about this and I get it. There are teams that have a lot more than this. 34 is the most that any team has. That’s the Lakers, the Thunder, the Warriors, and the Knicks are all at 34. That’s almost triple what the Hawks have nationally. They also there’s also another handful of teams that have at least 20 national games. The Wolves, the Rockets, the Cavs, the Nuggets, etc. It’s the teams you probably would recognize. Um the Mads are one where I’m not really sure why other than Cooper Flag, I guess, but we will see. The only I would say true showcase game the Hawks have like you know primary platform big NBA day is MLK day. We’ll get into that in a second when it comes to the Hawks. And by the way, spoiler, the Hawks do host MLK day this year. That’s a nice return. We’ll get into all the dynamics in play on that. Plus more notes on the schedule in just one moment. This is brought to you by Monarch Money. 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All right, before I dive into the MLK Day specifics, a couple of uh national folks, whether it be ESPN writers or media writers, have kind of pointed this out. this widespread change in the national TV deal which I already just mentioned the implementation of NBC Peacock Amazon Farewell to TNT all that it also changes once football is over but basically you know the old structure was TNT had Thursday nights that was their main night plus some Tuesdays ESPN has always had Wednesdays and Fridays it’s all shuffled around now so early in the year pre well sorry football’s still happening you got Monday is going to be a peacock night Tuesday NBC and peacock Wednesday, ESPN for example. Friday is an Amazon night, including NBA Cup. They had the entire NBA Cup. All that stuff is is on Amazon. And then after football ends, they move to Thursdays on Prime basically. And then the weekend starts raving up with, you know, ESPN, ABC, and Prime also doing some Saturdays, some Sundays, etc. So, it’s going to be interesting to navigate. I’ve already seen complaints. I I’m not in charge of this. I get it. I’ve always not enjoyed how hard it is to watch games. I think um you know just thearity like just the uncertainty basically on all of this is going to frustrate some people but we’ll get used to it together and just follow along in that way. Anyway, MLK day is the only showcase kind of game that the Hawks have on their schedule this year. It came out Tuesday. I referenced it briefly on the last show that I did, but the Hawks will host the Milwaukee Bucks at 100 p.m. Eastern time on MLK day. First, they did not play at home on the day last year. I hated that and said as much on this show. It was the first time since 2017 they didn’t play at home and before that it was 1999. So basically my entire, you know, semi adult life they have not played on MLK day at home twice and I’m almost 40. So there’s that. Now they’re back. And for me they should always always always play at home on MLK day. It’s not hard by the way. So should Memphis and they’re not this year. The Grizzlies not this is not this is not locked on Grizzlies. They should have a game as well. But Atlanta has one. There you go. This year. Now, more on this. I know fans were upset that it’s the first game of the day. It’s not prime time. It’s one o’clock. That’s different. Obviously, they have had the first game before. I would say it’s pretty clear to me at this point that the Hawks are just going to have to prove it on the court to get the level of national showcase that I know some fans want them to have. I get it. I think they’re going to be good this year and people that in my life think they’re going to be good this year. People that cover the league, not the Hawks. But, as far as TV products are concerned, that’s not always what matters. They use the brands that they think they’re going to actually draw. and the Hawks haven’t reached that level yet. That’s just the reality. But whether you agree with that or not, not saying it either way, but they’re not quite there yet. It does help that the Bucks also have pretty modest projections this year. So, I’m not surprised that Hawks Bucks is the first game on that particular day. But the other thing that got people very mad was that it’s only on Peacock. The rest of the schedule on that day is on NBC with Peacock only as a secondary. The Hawks game is on Peacock as the primary and the announcement. Now, again, going back to what I said before, we don’t know yet if that means Peacock exclusive or Peacock and FanDuel. If it’s on FanDuel, people will be less mad, I think. But if it’s only Peacock standalone on MLK Day, it feels from what I saw, people felt disrespected. I get that it looked a little bit weird on the announcement. And again, reminder that everything’s changed now. Um, but that clarity is coming. But generally generally speaking, I would say if you are a diehard NBA fan or anything close to that, you’re going to need Peacock and you’re going to need Amazon. So I know people have Amazon for shipping. I know I do Amazon Prime just as like a utility that I have, but Peacock’s going to be necessary if you want to watch basketball in full this year. You’re going to have to have it. Um, but anyway, they’re starting the NBC schedule on MLK day MLK day at 2:30, but the Hawks game is at 1. It’s on Peacock only. We will see. Now, they could have started at noon. I will say the Hawks don’t generally like to tip that early, so that might be part of it. Maybe they would have preferred one o’clock even even with Peacock. But regardless, it’s 1 PM Eastern time. People mad about that. I totally get it. But Peacock in itself will be a part of NBA watching at this point in time. And again, they have other national games. They have they do have NBC games. They do have ESPN games. Those can also change. We’ve seen unfortunately for the other side of this, the Hawks have lost some national games during the season recently when they have not played well or the other opponents like for instance last year they had a Spurs game that got pulled because WBY was unavailable. Like that stuff happens. It’s not always about the Hawks, but just stay tuned. Right now it’s 13 games and six of them are on the kind of prestige places elsewhere. Uh West Coast trips always interesting to kind of follow when those are going to be because they kind of mark the season. They’re difficult. But the Hawks this year, as a spoiler, don’t have any super duper long road trips. They have two West Coast trips. They’re both four games. Four games in November at the Clippers, at the Kings, at the Jazz, at the Suns. Not terribly difficult there. The Jazz are bad. For example, the Kings might be bad. The Suns might be bad, too. So, that’s not too bad schedule-wise. Then a four-amer in mid January. That one is harder. It’s Denver, Golden State, the Lakers, and the Blazers. No easy ones there, and that’s more of a challenge. The Hawks do not have their usual LA double. Last few years, they’ve usually played the Lakers and Clippers in like a weekend or over a couple days. That is not happening this year. If you want to make a trip to Los Angeles, which I tend to almost want to do, not available to it to you this year for two games. They do have one very, very roadheavy stretch of the season, and it’s actually seven road games in the first 15 days of January. So, to begin 2026, they have seven road games in 15 days. only have they have one home game in the middle of that. So basically it’s two road trips around one home game and seven of the first eight on the road in January. That’s probably the toughest run of geography on the schedule, but there you go. So again, no super long individual road trips. Teams really like that. They hate being gone for two weeks and also have one of those this year. They do have some long home stands. They have a big home stand over Christmas over the holidays. They have five games at home in a 9-day period from December 19th through December 27th. Not on Christmas, but if you are in town um for the holidays, if you are someone who’s not live in Atlanta or if you are welcome your family in, there will be opportunities to be at State Farm Arena. Nine, sorry, five home games in nine days around Christmas. Take vacation or whatever. Lots of home games in that spot. The longest home stretch though is actually late February into March. They have 10 out of 11 games at home over about a three and a half week period. Only one road game in there. It’s actually to Milwaukee. So, pretty easy trip. Generally speaking, a very, very homeheavy stretch in there. Holidays, MLK day, obviously I talked about earlier, they have a Black Friday game against the Cavs. That’s the day after Thanksgiving. Come back to that in a second. Um, that Christmas stretch, not actually on the day. And the only other holiday game is actually they play New Year’s Eve in the afternoon against Minnesota. That’ll be a fun game. Anthony Edwards, all of that. They have three series this year. And by what I mean by that is like two games in one place. Two of those actually though are at home. They play the Bulls in a twoame series in December. They play the Wizards in a twoame series at home in February. They only have one road trip to the same city for two games. It’s Toronto actually in early January. So nothing crazy there. They have five afternoon games this year. MLK Day is one of them. December 21st 3:30 against the Bulls. that New Year’s Eve game against the Wolves. They have a game on February 22nd, an afternoon game against the Brooklyn Nets. And then March 14th, that one home game there against the Bucks in the afternoon. So, if you are someone who might have smaller kids, want to be afternoon games, there are five opportunities to do that for the Hawks this year to even watch games, much less be in the in the building. They only have four super late games. I made fun of this, but when um they announced the schedule of the first week earlier this this week around the league, there’s a Lakers Clippers game that is a tipping off at 11 p.m. Eastern time. And that scared a lot of including me. But that’s not the frequent thing apparently, but just keep that in mind. But anyway, the Hawks have four games at 1000 p.m. Eastern time or later. Two of those in November in three nights and two of those in January in three nights. So, for someone like me who has to stay up very late on those nights, I’m grateful for only having four super late ones. There are some nines, some 9:30s, etc. Some 8 o’clock home games as well, going back to that. Well, if you were the Hawks, but nothing crazy there. And one more thing before we get to the rest of the pod, is that they have 13 sets of backtobacks this year. I’m still determining if that’s like an outlier number for this season. Um, but 13 is not a crazy number overall. The Hawks actually announced that number themselves. They have um in the schedule they have two home home backto-backs. So no travel staying in your own bed. Those are the easiest. They have one home road backtoback. Not so bad. They have three road road backtobacks which are actually really hard because you because you never come home. And then they have seven seven road to home backtobacks. Just odd. So basically what that means is most of the time they would play a game on the road, they’d fly home and then they’d be at home for the next day. Those are a little bit easier because you’re coming home, but still nothing terribly easy about that. And uh we’ll get into some more of this detail later on about who they play in the Eastern Conference, three times versus four times. And also some notable matchups on the schedule, NBA Cup, plus mailback questions. And it’s all coming up in just one moment. All right. Every year there is a little bit of a schedule intricacy about who you play three times versus four times in your own conference. As a refresher, you play everyone in the West twice and then you play everyone in the East at least three times. But this year it actually worked pretty well for the Hawks. They get the Knicks, Bucks, Bulls, Pistons, Pacers, and Sixers three times instead of four. So basically what that means is they play the Wizards and the Hornets four times each. They’re in their division, so that always has to happen. But the Wizards are going to be bad. Hornets, TBD. They also have the Nets four times and the Raptors four times. So, if you were trying to pick the teams you want to play four times, you would pick the Nets first probably, followed by the Wizards, and then you would certainly getting be getting into the Hornets and Raptors pretty quickly. So, that’s pretty favorable. Again, not a huge like game breaker on the schedule, but is very helpful to have those extra games against projected to be bad opponents. Um, matchups that are notable on the schedule for obvious reasons. Here’s some of these. Porzingis going back to Boston for the first time January 28th. Atlanta and Boston play four times. That’s the first one in Boston though, so he’ll I’m sure he’ll get a rousing welcome back to Boston. Nikil Alexander Walker going back to Minnesota on Monday, February the 9th. Nquille is very well-liked in Minnesota. Um I had Dane Moore on the show a couple weeks ago talk about that and talk about Nquille in general. He is uh very very well-liked and that’s a positive indicator. I’m sure that’d be a fun atmosphere there. Uh, I mentioned before the Thunder coming to town, the third game of the season. On the bright side, it’s a Saturday in October, so a lot of football, I’m sure, but I was told by someone immediately that’s it’s actually the UG bye-week. That doesn’t apply to everybody, but I know there are a lot of UG fans that are Hawks fans. Could be helpful for the crowd. The Lakers come to town November 8th. That’s a Saturday game. Always lively there. The Warriors come to town on March 21st, a Saturday. That’s of course Steph Curry coming to town there. Jokic and the Nuggets come Friday, December 5th. That is always fun. And then the Pelicans games are two. Obviously, if you are not familiar, the Hawks have a very, very clear interest in the Pelicans this year for draft reasons. They play them twice at New Orleans on November 22nd and then they come to Atlanta on Wednesday, January 7th. Similarly to the Bucks, they play the Bucks um three times. I talked about this, by the way, with Frank Madden on the show last week or two weeks ago about the Bucks MLK day and then they play them twice in a 10-day period in March. All three of those games, by the way, are on national TV. Interesting. And then Orlando’s other team I want to at least mention. Division race last year came down to the end between the Hawks and the Magic. This year, I think the team the Hawks are being compared to the absolute most in the league is probably Orlando. After that, it’s probably Detroit. It’s probably those three teams in a bucket because most people, not everyone, but most people are kind of projecting Cavs, Knicks, and then kind of a three-team battle royale between the Hawks, the Magic, and the Pistons. But Orlando being in the division, they played them four times. They played him twice at the end of the year as well on national TV. But keep that in mind. Lots of Orlando games happening in the near future. Also, one more note quickly here. Our friends at Positive Residual, they do a great job. It’s positive residual.com. They do a schedule analysis that’s just like, you know, algorithm based, math-based, etc. At the moment, they just posted their update. The Hawks, according to them, have the third easiest strength of schedule in all of baseball in all of basketball. That’s very very helpful I would say. They also have 10 games where they have rest advantages and um according to this they only have they also have 10 with rest advantages. So nothing crazy in the schedule break even there and a friendly schedule again because of what I said before about who you play three times. You play four times you’re playing the East of course and all that fun stuff. All right NBA Cup schedule games we already knew who they’re going to be playing but now we know when they’ll be playing them. It’s October 31st Halloween at Indiana. I think the Hawks are better than the Pat this year. That’s a game that’s though a pretty interesting test early in the season, like a week into the season playing a team that’s going to be frisky and well coached. Then November 7th against Toronto, 25th against Washington on the road, and then and then November 28th, that’s Black Friday, day after Thanksgiving, that has a pretty good chance I would say to decide the group. Obviously don’t know that now by any means, but the two best teams in my opinion, big holiday crowd, real stakes, that’ll be fun. I would say a semihol game. That’ll be a good one for the Hawks. and the uh people in the building. Um, of course, as a refresher, the top eight make the knockout round. There are six groups, the winners, plus two wild card teams. Last year, the Hawks won their group, made it all the way to the semi-finals. Um, it’s as it was last year, quarterfinals in the home stadiums and then the final four in Vegas in mid December. If the Hawks do not make the top eight and go to the knockout round, they will have two games scheduled for them to get to 82. So right now again they have 80 on the schedule. Two more coming either in group either in knockout play or in rescheduled play. And by the way for the record right now the Hawks are 13 to1 at FanDuel to win the NBA cup. Last year they were like 80 to1 or 100 to1. They didn’t win it but they they came close. Also in the group they are only 2 to1 right now to win the group. The Cavs are the favorite at plus 110. Then the Hawks then the Pacers 6 to1. Raptors 8 to1 and Wizards 20 to1. And generally speaking, going 4-0 is the easiest path to win it. You could win at 3 and one. We will see more of that to come. I promise you. Um, all right. Some questions before we get out of here from the mailbag of the schedule. First one comes from Ian. Ian says, “If you could pick five home games to go to this year with no restrictions, which ones would you pick?” This is a hard one because it’s all about personal preferences. I’m going to try to spread them out a little bit here and just highlight some that I like. Um, I would say the Thunder Game would be high on the list. reigning champions coming to town. Orlando has two games. The one the first one I would say November 4th NBC game probably a little bit more juice in the building for that one. And again, measuring stick game for the Hawks. Um I want to watch go I want to go watch Jokic December 5th. It’s a Friday night. Jokic for me is the best player in the world. I want to watch him always. Good crowd, good opponent, all of that. I personally would always choose MLK Day. Great atmosphere. Um the choir introductions has been a staple for a long time. Also a good game. Giannis is in town. the Bucks are going to be decent as long as he’s playing. Early tip off for me, that’s probably a good thing. Um, getting home to watch more basketball or football or whatever. And then from there, it’s like you got Minnesota, I would say Houston, Golden State, and the Lakers. One of those four dealer’s choice. Whether you’re an Edwards fan, if you’re a uh Kevin Durant fan, if you’re a Steph Curry fan, um the Laker game might be LeBron’s last trip to Atlanta. That’s always conceivable. So, that might be one that’s interesting. Plus the Hawks and Hawks fans hate Luca I would say at least a lot of them do. So 15 options I would say for five spots. But that’s just a pretty good like overview of some highlight games I would say. Um the only ones in the East again would probably be you know maybe Cleveland games. Black Friday would be a good one too. NBA cupwise if you want if you if you are certainly watching NBA Cup that’d be on the list. Orlando Knicks lots of options I would say. Uh Troyer asks a question that says I’m thinking about taking a road trip quote unquote with the Hawks at some point this year. What’s the best one that is somewhat logical geographically? Uh, three options here. I would say if you want to go on the long one that’s challenging, I would do the second west coast trip. It’s Denver, San, sorry, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles for the Lakers, and then Portland. Tough travel, but certainly it would be a fun one and some good games. If you want a little bit shorter and two awesome cities, the Hawks have a trip where they play a game in New York at MSG against the Knicks. And then they go to Toronto for two games in three days. So you can do with three flights, you can go Atlanta to New York to Toronto to Atlanta. Three games, two awesome cities to visit. Toronto’s not very good, I don’t think, but they’re not terrible. They have talent. Awesome cities to visit. I would like that one a lot. Have your passport with you, of course. And then for a short one, I would say maybe Dallas and Houston. Um they play March 18th and March 20th. Dallas and Houston. There’s a day between if you want to do some sightseeing, get some barbecue or whatever. Maybe drive it if you wanted to. We could fly it together. Manageable travel. Two good interesting opponents. That’s the one I’d highlight as well. So, you can’t do the LA double this year, but the Texas double perhaps would be appealing. And last question on the podcast comes from Phil, who says, “I’ve had tickets for the Hawks, sorry, season tickets for the Hawks for years. I always miss a couple games and give my tickets away rather than trying to sell them. Are there any that stand out as games that I should proactively bail on?” That’s funny. Um, pretty much the inverse of the question about the best games. Um, look, I go to all games that I can go to for work purposes, but I do understand the sentiment and I want to give you some skips if you want to take some skips. Um, Brooklyn comes to town twice this year. They’re going to be awful, I think. So, even if you don’t even if if you don’t want to miss them, they come twice. So, pick one of those and not go. Um, my number one pick to skip all year if you maybe choose one game would be Thursday, March 12th against Brooklyn. I’ll be there anyway because I’m working, but that’s one. It’s during the week. It’s a bad opponent who comes twice. No thanks. Utah is going to be awful as well. I think they come to town on Thursday, February 5th. They only come once. So, if you’re a big fan of like Lori Markin or Walker Kesler, sure, but um I would that’s one I’d put on the list for sure. And then Washington comes to town twice and they come to town twice in three days in February. So, whichever one of those you want to you want you want to pick, that’s another one to skip. So, if there’s three games you want to skip, I would go Brooklyn number one, one of the Washington games, and Utah would be my personal choices. But there are others that you could certainly argue on behalf. I know which ones I wouldn’t skip. It’s the good ones, but they, you know, I get it. Not everyone’s going to go to 41 games at home. I miss games, too. I have a day job and have to travel and all that fun stuff. So, strap in. We’ll have a lot of content coming up in the near future, but it’s going to be a lot of fun. I would say I’m looking forward to the schedule. I start planning my potential road trips. I start planning my potential like featury kind of stuff. the Hawks have, you know, looking at all these travel things, rest advantages and miles traveled and backtobacks and schedule analysis. In the end, again, it comes down to how good the team is. There are little things that can influence the performance as far as wins and losses. I am a fan, and by a fan, I mean like I’m a believer in there are schedule losses in the NBA. Schedule can dictate some results sometimes, but that also is the case for everyone in the NBA. Keep that in mind, too. So, you want to be flat. You want to be evenhanded about that. And uh we’ll have much more to come, I promise, on the podcast. Programming note, I am actually headed out of town next week. I have episodes recorded. If anything crazy happens, I will break in with some uh more current stuff, but I have two guests coming on and a couple of two-parters. So, it’ll be four episodes next week, couple two two-art conversations. Stay tuned for that. Please subscribe to the show anywhere you get your podcast, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Follow the show on x/ Twitter, lonhawks. Follow the show on Blue Sky if you want to through me. It’s BT Roland. I’m also on X on Twitter at that same handle at BT Roland. And then my non-podcast cover to the Hawks can be found at patreon.com/bt Roland. All right everybody, thanks for listening. As always, mark your calendar on the schedule and we’ll see you all next time.

Brad Rowland (@BTRowland) hosts Episode 2038 of the Locked on Hawks podcast, breaking down the 2025-26 schedule for the Atlanta Hawks. Topics include how Quin Snyder’s team will open and close the season, national TV games, a friendly strength of schedule from Positive Residual, the return to State Farm Arena on MLK Day, the 2025 NBA Cup, the best games, the least interesting games, appealing road trips, and much more.

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