After shipping off several veterans this offseason to cut costs across the board, the Boston Celtics will look a lot different when they take the floor for the first time to open the 2025-26 campaign.
While many of the faces on the roster will be new, the allure of the Celtics brand name is as strong as ever. The league's decision to match Boston up against one of its chief rivals for an NBA first is as indicative of that fact as anything.
Wednesday afternoon, the NBA continued its week-long release of the schedule for the upcoming regular season. With the change in broadcasting rights over the summer, fans will be viewing games in different ways than ever before later this fall, and the Celtics are being slotted into one of the biggest games of them all.
Boston will face the New York Knicks in the inaugural game broadcast on Amazon Prime.
A new NBA era is here.
— NBA on Prime (@NBAonPrime) August 13, 2025
NBA on Prime begins October 24th. pic.twitter.com/rQGd8P1z31
Boston Celtics Selected to Play in History-Making Game This Season
Beyond being one of the fiercest rivalries in the league, the Knicks and Celtics will be the first of two playoff rematches on the night. Their inaugural game on Amazon Prime will be followed by a showdown between the Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves, which should make for a great night of basketball.
There are plenty of other playoff rematches that the league could have fit into this time slot, but they chose Boston for a reason. Rivalry games typically bring out the best in players, and with the Celtics entering this particular matchup with a bad taste in their mouths following the Knicks' elimination of them from last season's playoffs, this is a prime opportunity for Boston to knock New York down a peg.
We're just over two months away from the start of another NBA regular season, and this matchup will be here before fans know it.