Short End of the Stick: Which Teams Are the Biggest Losers of the 2026

It is an undeniable reality in the NBA that not all schedules are created equal, even though every team plays the same opponents.

Every season, 30 teams have to play 82 games in a six-month span, with matchups against every other team in the Association. That is a lot of games to plan, even before taking into account the dozens of other factors that go into the process. The league tries its best to make every team’s schedule even in terms of rest time and how many back-to-backs they have to play, but there’s no perfect way to do so. It’d be nice if every team was able to play every game after an off day or enjoy multiple days of rest after long plane rides, but the math doesn’t work out that way. The games must be played, and some of them are going to be played under suboptimal conditions—whether it’s playing three games in four days, battling through a back-to-back on the road or a five-game week.

It’s inevitable, in other words, that some franchises get the short end of the stick. The schedule has to be crunched in some stretches and it’s nigh impossible to ensure everybody shares the burden equally.

With the NBA releasing the full schedule for all 30 clubs this week, which teams got particularly screwed by that reality? Let’s break it down.

The five teams with 16 back-to-back games

Nets vs. Maverick — The Nets and Mavericks will play 16 back-to-backs this year along with the Celtics, Pelicans and Cavaliers. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The biggest losers of the schedule release each year are the teams that end up with the most back-to-back games. This year, there are five teams tied for the most such games—the Celtics, Pelicans, Nets, Cavaliers and Mavericks.

Why are back-to-backs a bad thing? Because playing two games in two nights is rough on the NBA body. Teams have become wary of that and have collectively fallen into the habit of resting certain players with injury risk on one of those nights, even their superstars. Those teams are also usually at a competitive disadvantage because their opponent for the second back-to-back is almost always more rested, coming off a day where they didn’t have to play a game.

It’s not a huge issue, of course, given those back-to-backs take up less than 20% of the above teams' schedules. That number used to be much higher. But they are still necessary to ensure every game is played in the time frame the regular season offers and playing more of those games than anybody else is an unfortunate stroke of bad luck.

NEXT: The Five Teams the NBA Doesn’t Want You to Watch This Season

The Celtics in November

Jayson Tatum’s squad will go through a trial by fire in November. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

As mentioned, the Celtics got served with 16 games that will be played on the second night of a back-to-back this season—and six of them come in November alone. Boston’s slate that month is going to be a serious test for a team trying to work out its chemistry after the roster reshuffling of the offseason. They’ll spend 12 of the 16 games they play that month on the road. That’s an intense stretch.

Making it more difficult? The C’s will have three road back-to-backs that require them to fly out of one city after the first game to play in another city the following night. It starts with a Sunday night game in Orlando with a game in Houston on Monday, then a back-to-back in Philadelphia and Toronto. There will be another back-to-back in Boston when the Celtics play host to the Mavericks and Magic before they’re off on another road trip that includes a back-to-back in San Antonio and Dallas. Ultimately, these all add up to four instances of three games in four nights before the calendar hits December.

In some ways it’s a benefit to get the rough travel stretches out of the way early while everyone still has fresh legs and injury attrition hasn’t set in the way we see near the end of the campaign. But if problems arise for Boston in the first few months of the year, the Celtics are going to have to solve it on the fly because they’ll have no time to do otherwise.

New Orleans Pelicans

Zion Williamso — The Pelicans have a rough schedule this season. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The Pelicans not only have 16 back-to-back games throughout the upcoming campaign. They also lead the NBA in stretches where they’ll have to play three games in four nights, with 27 games taking place under those circumstances. That probably doesn’t feel very good for New Orleans after all the injury problems the roster suffered through. Having a spaced-out schedule doesn’t guarantee full health, but having to put the body through three games in four days instead of three games in seven days is obviously more of a physical ordeal.

On top of all that, New Orleans has the worst “rest advantage” in the NBA, per Shamit Dua’s NBA Schedule Dash Board. The Pelicans will play eight games this season where they will be more rested than their opponent based on how many days off they have before playing. But that’s offset (and then some) by the 13 games they’ll play where the opponent owns that rest advantage. No other team in the league will be playing on less rest than New Orleans.

All in all, that makes this most cramped schedule in the league.

The Knicks in December (and it could get worse)

Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Town — The Knicks could be in for a very long December. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

NBA teams tend to get their road games done in bunches, which can lead to some lengthy time spent on the road. The Knicks will be getting quite a few of theirs out of the way in December, when they are currently scheduled to play only three of their 12 games that month at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The rest are away, and how the NBA Cup unfolds could result in an epic road trip.

New York kicks off the month with a back-to-back set of away games in Chicago and Milwaukee. The next week of the schedule is TBD for now because it’s slated for the NBA Cup quarterfinals and semifinals. If the Knicks make it to the elimination round of the NBA Cup but don’t claim a top seed, they could wind up adding two more road games to their schedule (the quarterfinal is hosted by the higher-seeded team, as will the semifinal for the first time this year).

Should the Knicks follow the same path as last year and reach the NBA Cup final, they’ll end up in Indiana playing at Hinkle Fieldhouse for a neutral site game, which isn’t technically an away game but definitely isn’t a home game. And even if they don’t make the final (or fail to qualify for the postseason at all) the NBA has to pick a few games to populate their schedule that week. Those games may have to be away, too. If so, that will create a lengthy December road trip—because they’re scheduled to be on the road from Dec. 12 through Dec. 21, playing five games in that span. Which means New York could very well end up playing only road games for three straight weeks.

There is, of course, a chance the Knicks get a reprieve during NBA Cup week and wind up playing a few home games to break up the two road trips at the beginning and middle of the month. But even in that instance, it’s still a something of a difficult stretch with the aforementioned five-game road trip leading into a short five-day home stand that includes playing on Christmas Day before they go on the road again.

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