NBA opening night has become a yearly event where the best teams are typically showcased as the sports world turns its eyes to the league. Sometimes those opening day games are not just spectacles, but a harbinger of future outcomes, whether a surprise one or an expected one.
1) February 5, 1999: Philadelphia 76ers 78, Charlotte Hornets 66 (messy start to a messy lockout-shortened season)
It was an expectedly and appropriately ugly start to what eventually became the ugliest post-merger season of the league. After a lengthy lockout was finally resolved on January 20th, an abbreviated schedule was cobbled together that included 24 teams active on the league's opening night. The evening included a victory for the impending champion Spurs, and a loss for the three-time defending champion Bulls, with their decimated roster prominently featuring Brent Barry and Andrew Lang replacing Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. But the best summation of the upcoming season came in Charlotte, where the Hornets and Sixers shot a combined 56-of-154 (36%) from the field and the leading scorers, Allen Iverson and Bobby Phills, finished with just 15 points each as both teams failed to crack 80 for the game. This was no battle of cellar dwellers either, as both teams finished above .500 for the season, and Philadelphia eventually reached the second round of the playoffs. Most of the entries on this list will portend the near future for individual teams, but this was one time when a game foreshadowed a rough year for the entire league.
2) October 12, 1979: Los Angeles Lakers 103, San Diego Clippers 102 (Magic dazzles)
3) October 12, 1979: Boston Celtics 114, Houston Rockets 106 (Larry's legend begins)
According to the calendar there was still a couple months worth of games left to be played in the tumultuous '70s, but according to basketball lore this is the night the golden age of the NBA '80s began as Magic Johnson first took the floor as a Laker. Despite his star turn at Michigan State, plenty of questions still surrounded Johnson when Los Angeles selected first overall in the 1979 Draft, including his ability to gel with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The two star players responded by combining for 55 points in their debut as teammates, which turned out to be a tight win over a scrappy cross-state Clippers opponent led by points hawk World B. Free. After Abdul-Jabbar won the game with a buzzer beater, his signature sky hook, Magic ran around the floor high-fiving fellow Lakers and celebrating inordinately. His veteran teammates, especially the notoriously dour Kareem, had to remind Johnson that there was still 81 games left to play. But Magic's exuberance and unbounded energy that was on display that night would remake the culture of the Lakers, and power them to the title that season, their first of five in the decade.
Meanwhile on the other side of the country, one era was giving way to another in Boston, and a dynasty was budding to rival the Showtime Lakers. Dave Cowen's Celtics career started just one year after Bill Russell retired, so it seems appropriate that his final season with the team coincided with Larry Bird's rookie debut. Bird's first game was a relatively inauspicious start statistically, with 14 points and 10 rebounds, but it was no small feat that he led Boston, who had won just 29 games the year before, to a victory over a good Rockets team anchored by Moses Malone. Rookie of the Year for '79-'80 would eventually go to Bird, as he led the Celtics to 61 wins and a Conference Finals appearance.
4) October 21, 1976: Boston Celtics 129, Indiana Pacers 122 (don't sleep on the merged ABA teams)
When the ABA was absorbed ("merged") by the NBA in the summer of 1976, the Spurs and Nuggets, sporting respective superstars George Gervin and David Thompson, were expected to be instant contenders. The Nets, meanwhile, were considered a non-entity after they were forced to sell Julius Erving to pay their entry fee, and the Pacers were almost as big an afterthought. Though Indiana was the most successful franchise of the ABA, with five Finals appearances and three titles, their roster in 1976 contained mostly role players and journeymen by NBA standards, and their NBA debut was scheduled against the defending champion Celtics. Though they lost the game, the Pacers, led by Billy Knight with 29 points, proved themselves to be no pushovers, leading for most of the first three quarters, by as much as 18 points. Boston would eventually come back and win, thanks to some late game heroics from the aging John Havlicek, but the game served noticed than even the supposed weakest of the former ABA teams was not to be taken lightly. Though the Pacers would have their share of struggles and not reach the NBA postseason until 1981, the Nuggets and Spurs both did find instant success in their new league.
5) November 2, 1999: Los Angeles Lakers 91, Utah Jazz 84 (changing of the West guard)
After disappointing playoff exits in the first three years of the Shaquille O'Neal/Kobe Bryant era, the Lakers were primed to break through in '99-'00 under new head coach Phil Jackson. A match-up against the old guard Jazz trying to make a final run with Karl Malone and John Stockton (plus Jeff Hornacek, who had announced his impending retirement at the end of the season) felt like an appropriate start to that campaign. Jackson's emphasis for his new players was on team defense, and the earliest result was encouraging, as the Lakers held Utah to 44% shooting from the field in a hard-earned road victory. This was even more impressive considering that Los Angeles was without Kobe Bryant, who had broken his hand during a preseason exhibition game. Newly acquired starting small forward Glen Rice led the way for the Lakers with 28 points, while O'Neal added 23 points and 13 rebounds. Utah did end up as the second seed in the Western Conference that year behind the Lakers, but lost in the second round of the playoffs to Portland and have not finished that high in the standings since. Los Angeles got Bryant back from his injury in early December and ended the season with 67 wins and their first of three consecutive championships.
6) October 31, 2006: Chicago Bulls 108, Miami Heat 66 (about that Heat title defense...)
A Halloween night game became the scene of a massacre for Miami, who came limping out of the gate in '06-'07 in one of the league's best examples of an extended NBA title hangover. Quite rapidly, all of the perceived weaknesses for Miami in the 2006 playoffs that were covered up by smoke-and-mirrors and exemplary Dwyane Wade performances (plus some help from the refs) were laid bare. A hobbling and ancient-looking Shaquille O'Neal especially struggled, scoring just seven points on 3-of-10 shooting from the field, but veteran role players Antoine Walker and Gary Payton also looked washed up and overwhelmed against a young, athletic, up-and-coming Bulls team. Chicago seemed to be finally building something in '06-'07, adding veteran All-Star Ben Wallace to a youthful core, and that spring they won their first playoff series since Michael Jordan's retirement, over this same Heat squad in a sweep. O'Neal would play better over the course of the season, but suffered several injury setbacks and was never quite the same with Miami or in subsequent stints with Phoenix, Cleveland, and Boston.
7) November 3, 1989: Chicago Bulls 124, Cleveland Cavaliers 119 (Jordan owns Cleveland)
Expectations were high for Cleveland in the 1989 playoffs, but an unfortunate first round matchup against the Bulls was their undoing as usual, this time culminating in "The Shot." Despite suffering the latest in a string of disappointments, the Cavs did seem to be further cultivating a solid roster that could possibly rival the Bulls, Pistons, and Celtics for Eastern Conference supremacy. Cleveland could also hang their hats on the fact that they had swept Chicago during the '88-'89 regular season, and were looking to continue that streak into the next year. The 1989 postseason had ultimately ended in disappointment for Chicago as well, as they blew a 2-1 series lead in the Conference Finals against Detroit, leading to Doug Collins being fired as coach and replaced by his assistant, Phil Jackson. Stakes were high for both teams heading into opening night in Chicago, and the game took on a preordained manner. Cleveland led for almost the entire game until Michael Jordan took over in the final minutes and overtime, finishing with 54 points in a Bulls win. It was one more legendary performance in a long line of them for Jordan, and though the Bulls would falter again in that season's playoffs against Detroit, they finally broke through the next year for their first of six titles. As for Cleveland, it was fitting that Mark Price and Brad Daugherty both missed this game due to injury, as medical issues would come to define this era almost as much as being on the wrong end of Jordan heroics. They would lose in the first round in this season to Philadelphia, and never reach the NBA Finals with this core group.
8) November 5, 1993 Houston Rockets 110, New Jersey Nets 88 (a new alpha dog makes his opening statement)
The opening night of the '93-'94 season felt like a bit of an audition. Less than two years removed from the retirements of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, the league was sent further reeling in the summer of 1993 when Michael Jordan announced his baseball career intentions. With the “Bad Boy” Pistons also slipping back into mediocrity, the 1994 title seemed up for grabs in a manner that the NBA hadn’t experienced since the late ‘70s. Houston was not considered by many to be one of the top picks to take over the mantle of best team. After a disappointing Western Conference Semifinals loss to Seattle the year before, Hakeem Olajuwon’s squad seemed like it already been lapped by younger rivals like Seattle, Utah, and Phoenix. But they loudly announced their intentions of taking over the league’s throne by winning their first 15 games, and eventually starting the season 22-1. It all started with this victory over a frisky but overmatched Nets team that was trying to make sense of its talented but untested core of Derrick Coleman, Kenny Anderson, and Chris Morris that had shown some promise the year before under new coach Chuck Daly. Led by Olajuwon’s stat-stuffing performance with 24 points, 19 rebounds, six assists, five steals, and five blocks, the Rockets cruised to their first of many easy victories that would mark their championship season.
9) October 26, 2010: Boston Celtics 88, Miami Heat 80 (the old Big Three teaches the new Big Three a lesson)
After their summer of 2010 free agent signing coup of LeBron James and Chris Bosh, the Heat ruffled a few feathers around the league with a premature celebration event in which multiple championships were not quite guaranteed, but at least implied. One can only imagine how some of the wily veterans with rings already in their possession were chomping at the bit to get a shot at James and the Heat after seeing that video, and the Celtics were basically the embodiment of that grievance. Just three years removed from the original "Big Three" of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen first teaming up to win the championship, Boston's stars had all lost a step or two in the ensuing seasons, but they still considered themselves the class of the conference. An opening night home tilt against Miami was a huge opportunity to make a statement, and the Celtics took quick advantage, holding the impetuous Heat to just nine points in the first quarter, and opening up a 15 point lead by halftime. Miami did storm back in the second half and make a game of it, but ultimately fell short despite 31 points from James. While LeBron didn't disappoint in his Heat debut, Bosh and Dwyane Wade struggled, shooting a combined 7-of-27 from the field. Miami would bounce back and win their next four games, but a 9-8 start raised some questions about the coronation of this new "Big Three." Though they eventually cruised to 58 wins and blew through the Eastern Conference playoffs (including a series win over Boston), that criticism would ultimately ring true in the NBA Finals, where the Heat fell against Dallas.
It was an expectedly and appropriately ugly start to what eventually became the ugliest post-merger season of the league. After a lengthy lockout was finally resolved on January 20th, an abbreviated schedule was cobbled together that included 24 teams active on the league's opening night. The evening included a victory for the impending champion Spurs, and a loss for the three-time defending champion Bulls, with their decimated roster prominently featuring Brent Barry and Andrew Lang replacing Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. But the best summation of the upcoming season came in Charlotte, where the Hornets and Sixers shot a combined 56-of-154 (36%) from the field and the leading scorers, Allen Iverson and Bobby Phills, finished with just 15 points each as both teams failed to crack 80 for the game. This was no battle of cellar dwellers either, as both teams finished above .500 for the season, and Philadelphia eventually reached the second round of the playoffs. Most of the entries on this list will portend the near future for individual teams, but this was one time when a game foreshadowed a rough year for the entire league.
2) October 12, 1979: Los Angeles Lakers 103, San Diego Clippers 102 (Magic dazzles)
3) October 12, 1979: Boston Celtics 114, Houston Rockets 106 (Larry's legend begins)
According to the calendar there was still a couple months worth of games left to be played in the tumultuous '70s, but according to basketball lore this is the night the golden age of the NBA '80s began as Magic Johnson first took the floor as a Laker. Despite his star turn at Michigan State, plenty of questions still surrounded Johnson when Los Angeles selected first overall in the 1979 Draft, including his ability to gel with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The two star players responded by combining for 55 points in their debut as teammates, which turned out to be a tight win over a scrappy cross-state Clippers opponent led by points hawk World B. Free. After Abdul-Jabbar won the game with a buzzer beater, his signature sky hook, Magic ran around the floor high-fiving fellow Lakers and celebrating inordinately. His veteran teammates, especially the notoriously dour Kareem, had to remind Johnson that there was still 81 games left to play. But Magic's exuberance and unbounded energy that was on display that night would remake the culture of the Lakers, and power them to the title that season, their first of five in the decade.
Meanwhile on the other side of the country, one era was giving way to another in Boston, and a dynasty was budding to rival the Showtime Lakers. Dave Cowen's Celtics career started just one year after Bill Russell retired, so it seems appropriate that his final season with the team coincided with Larry Bird's rookie debut. Bird's first game was a relatively inauspicious start statistically, with 14 points and 10 rebounds, but it was no small feat that he led Boston, who had won just 29 games the year before, to a victory over a good Rockets team anchored by Moses Malone. Rookie of the Year for '79-'80 would eventually go to Bird, as he led the Celtics to 61 wins and a Conference Finals appearance.
4) October 21, 1976: Boston Celtics 129, Indiana Pacers 122 (don't sleep on the merged ABA teams)
When the ABA was absorbed ("merged") by the NBA in the summer of 1976, the Spurs and Nuggets, sporting respective superstars George Gervin and David Thompson, were expected to be instant contenders. The Nets, meanwhile, were considered a non-entity after they were forced to sell Julius Erving to pay their entry fee, and the Pacers were almost as big an afterthought. Though Indiana was the most successful franchise of the ABA, with five Finals appearances and three titles, their roster in 1976 contained mostly role players and journeymen by NBA standards, and their NBA debut was scheduled against the defending champion Celtics. Though they lost the game, the Pacers, led by Billy Knight with 29 points, proved themselves to be no pushovers, leading for most of the first three quarters, by as much as 18 points. Boston would eventually come back and win, thanks to some late game heroics from the aging John Havlicek, but the game served noticed than even the supposed weakest of the former ABA teams was not to be taken lightly. Though the Pacers would have their share of struggles and not reach the NBA postseason until 1981, the Nuggets and Spurs both did find instant success in their new league.
5) November 2, 1999: Los Angeles Lakers 91, Utah Jazz 84 (changing of the West guard)
After disappointing playoff exits in the first three years of the Shaquille O'Neal/Kobe Bryant era, the Lakers were primed to break through in '99-'00 under new head coach Phil Jackson. A match-up against the old guard Jazz trying to make a final run with Karl Malone and John Stockton (plus Jeff Hornacek, who had announced his impending retirement at the end of the season) felt like an appropriate start to that campaign. Jackson's emphasis for his new players was on team defense, and the earliest result was encouraging, as the Lakers held Utah to 44% shooting from the field in a hard-earned road victory. This was even more impressive considering that Los Angeles was without Kobe Bryant, who had broken his hand during a preseason exhibition game. Newly acquired starting small forward Glen Rice led the way for the Lakers with 28 points, while O'Neal added 23 points and 13 rebounds. Utah did end up as the second seed in the Western Conference that year behind the Lakers, but lost in the second round of the playoffs to Portland and have not finished that high in the standings since. Los Angeles got Bryant back from his injury in early December and ended the season with 67 wins and their first of three consecutive championships.
6) October 31, 2006: Chicago Bulls 108, Miami Heat 66 (about that Heat title defense...)
A Halloween night game became the scene of a massacre for Miami, who came limping out of the gate in '06-'07 in one of the league's best examples of an extended NBA title hangover. Quite rapidly, all of the perceived weaknesses for Miami in the 2006 playoffs that were covered up by smoke-and-mirrors and exemplary Dwyane Wade performances (plus some help from the refs) were laid bare. A hobbling and ancient-looking Shaquille O'Neal especially struggled, scoring just seven points on 3-of-10 shooting from the field, but veteran role players Antoine Walker and Gary Payton also looked washed up and overwhelmed against a young, athletic, up-and-coming Bulls team. Chicago seemed to be finally building something in '06-'07, adding veteran All-Star Ben Wallace to a youthful core, and that spring they won their first playoff series since Michael Jordan's retirement, over this same Heat squad in a sweep. O'Neal would play better over the course of the season, but suffered several injury setbacks and was never quite the same with Miami or in subsequent stints with Phoenix, Cleveland, and Boston.
7) November 3, 1989: Chicago Bulls 124, Cleveland Cavaliers 119 (Jordan owns Cleveland)
Expectations were high for Cleveland in the 1989 playoffs, but an unfortunate first round matchup against the Bulls was their undoing as usual, this time culminating in "The Shot." Despite suffering the latest in a string of disappointments, the Cavs did seem to be further cultivating a solid roster that could possibly rival the Bulls, Pistons, and Celtics for Eastern Conference supremacy. Cleveland could also hang their hats on the fact that they had swept Chicago during the '88-'89 regular season, and were looking to continue that streak into the next year. The 1989 postseason had ultimately ended in disappointment for Chicago as well, as they blew a 2-1 series lead in the Conference Finals against Detroit, leading to Doug Collins being fired as coach and replaced by his assistant, Phil Jackson. Stakes were high for both teams heading into opening night in Chicago, and the game took on a preordained manner. Cleveland led for almost the entire game until Michael Jordan took over in the final minutes and overtime, finishing with 54 points in a Bulls win. It was one more legendary performance in a long line of them for Jordan, and though the Bulls would falter again in that season's playoffs against Detroit, they finally broke through the next year for their first of six titles. As for Cleveland, it was fitting that Mark Price and Brad Daugherty both missed this game due to injury, as medical issues would come to define this era almost as much as being on the wrong end of Jordan heroics. They would lose in the first round in this season to Philadelphia, and never reach the NBA Finals with this core group.
8) November 5, 1993 Houston Rockets 110, New Jersey Nets 88 (a new alpha dog makes his opening statement)
The opening night of the '93-'94 season felt like a bit of an audition. Less than two years removed from the retirements of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, the league was sent further reeling in the summer of 1993 when Michael Jordan announced his baseball career intentions. With the “Bad Boy” Pistons also slipping back into mediocrity, the 1994 title seemed up for grabs in a manner that the NBA hadn’t experienced since the late ‘70s. Houston was not considered by many to be one of the top picks to take over the mantle of best team. After a disappointing Western Conference Semifinals loss to Seattle the year before, Hakeem Olajuwon’s squad seemed like it already been lapped by younger rivals like Seattle, Utah, and Phoenix. But they loudly announced their intentions of taking over the league’s throne by winning their first 15 games, and eventually starting the season 22-1. It all started with this victory over a frisky but overmatched Nets team that was trying to make sense of its talented but untested core of Derrick Coleman, Kenny Anderson, and Chris Morris that had shown some promise the year before under new coach Chuck Daly. Led by Olajuwon’s stat-stuffing performance with 24 points, 19 rebounds, six assists, five steals, and five blocks, the Rockets cruised to their first of many easy victories that would mark their championship season.
9) October 26, 2010: Boston Celtics 88, Miami Heat 80 (the old Big Three teaches the new Big Three a lesson)
After their summer of 2010 free agent signing coup of LeBron James and Chris Bosh, the Heat ruffled a few feathers around the league with a premature celebration event in which multiple championships were not quite guaranteed, but at least implied. One can only imagine how some of the wily veterans with rings already in their possession were chomping at the bit to get a shot at James and the Heat after seeing that video, and the Celtics were basically the embodiment of that grievance. Just three years removed from the original "Big Three" of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen first teaming up to win the championship, Boston's stars had all lost a step or two in the ensuing seasons, but they still considered themselves the class of the conference. An opening night home tilt against Miami was a huge opportunity to make a statement, and the Celtics took quick advantage, holding the impetuous Heat to just nine points in the first quarter, and opening up a 15 point lead by halftime. Miami did storm back in the second half and make a game of it, but ultimately fell short despite 31 points from James. While LeBron didn't disappoint in his Heat debut, Bosh and Dwyane Wade struggled, shooting a combined 7-of-27 from the field. Miami would bounce back and win their next four games, but a 9-8 start raised some questions about the coronation of this new "Big Three." Though they eventually cruised to 58 wins and blew through the Eastern Conference playoffs (including a series win over Boston), that criticism would ultimately ring true in the NBA Finals, where the Heat fell against Dallas.