NBA - Compressed schedule? No rest for the weary

NEW YORK (NBA) - The long wait for NBA fans is about to end.

Regular-season games are to be played, starting with a mouthwatering five clashes on Sunday.

Carmelo Anthony and the New York Knicks will host Paul Pierce and the Boston Celtics at Madison Square Garden.

Miami Heat trio LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh will visit Dirk Nowitzki and the defending champions Dallas Mavericks, and Derrick Rose, who has just agreed to a five-year, $94million contract extension with Chicago, will travel with the Bulls to face the Lakers in Los Angeles.

Kevin Durant and Oklahoma City will be at home against Dwight Howard and Orlando and Chris Paul will be with the LA Clippers at Golden State.

Yes, there will be big-time hoops but what there won't be for fans is the normal 82-game schedule.

Instead, the lockout that started on July 1 and ended on December 8 has forced the league to have a compressed 66-game schedule for each side.

There won't be many days off for teams.

Back-To-Back-To-Back

Every franchise, at some point in the campaign, will play three games in three nights.

There will be 42 back-to-back-to-backs in all.

If that sounds a lot, 66 triples had to be played after the 1999 lockout when teams had 50-game regular-season schedules that had to be completed in 90 days.

That will come as little consolation to the players of San Antonio, Portland, Phoenix, New Jersey, Minnesota, the Clippers, Indiana, Detroit and Atlanta each of those clubs have back-to-back-to-backs twice this season.

"The schedule is going to be tough for every team,'' Nowitzki said.

"The good thing is we only have one back-to-back-to-back, so that shouldn't be too rough.''

The Lakers will have a back-to-back-to-back from the off.

After opening their campaign on Sunday against Chicago, the Lakers will take the short trip north to face the Sacramento Kings on Monday before returning home 24 hours later to meet the Utah Jazz.

A physio's take

The compressed schedule will not make trainers' jobs any easier.

The Lakers' veteran physiotherapist, Gary Vitti, has been in the job for 27 years.

"Since I believe lack of recovery time is the biggest issue in our league, you couple the travel, time change and sleep pattern disruption to make it very difficult to recovery from the game or practice the day before," Vitti said.

"The margin for error is now lower given the schedule."

Which teams does the 66-game schedule favor?

Maybe a younger team like Oklahoma City can deal with games that come fast and furious.

Then again, an older Boston Celtic squad might benefit from having less games over the course of the season.

No White House visit

Teams will visit only nine cities in the opposite conference and for last season's champions, the Dallas Mavericks, there is no trip to Washington.

This means there traditional visit of the NBA champions to the White House to meet the President won't take place.

Each team will play just 18 out-of-conference games, which means every team is skipping six cities.

Durant and Oklahoma City won't play at Madison Square Garden, nor in Chicago.

Neither the Lakers, nor the Clippers, will visit Chicago, either.

The biggest talking point with the season just days away is the number of games some teams will play in a very short space of time.

Toronto will have 19 games in 31 days in January.

Houston have seven of their first 10 games are on the road.

The Rockets will have San Antonio (home), Memphis (away) and Atlanta (home), followed by games at the Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers, then back-to-back games against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Atlanta Hawks will have nine games in 12 days, a run that starts with their opener on December 27.

The Mavericks will have to dig deep come the middle of January (16-21) when they have four games in six days away from home.

Those tests will come against the Los Angeles Lakers, LA Clippers, Utah Jazz and New Orleans Hornets.

The Mavs will also have a road trip that has four games in five days (April 12-16), when they take on Golden State, Portland, the Lakers and Jazz.

"With a schedule like that, you're going to need a good bench, you're going to need some scoring, you're going to need some fresh legs, and you're go to need Roddy (Beaubois) hopefully back healthy,'' Nowitzki said.

"Those big guys are going to have to be big off the bench and they're giving you energy and giving you freshness.''

FIBA