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Portland Trail Blazers' Season Opens With a Gauntlet
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- Portland Trail Blazers' Season Opens With a Gauntlet
Portland Trail Blazers' Season Opens With a Gauntlet
(Soobum Im-Imagn Images)
The Portland Trail Blazers won't kick off the season with a soft landing into the Ja Morant era. Portland's 2026-27 schedule, released in August, hands the new-look roster one of the toughest opening stretches in the league.
Damian Lillard's long-awaited return to the court is back.
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Oct. 21 — Lillard's Return
Portland opens at home against Phoenix on Oct. 21, and it will mark Lillard's first regular-season appearance in a Blazers uniform since March 2023, when his Achilles injury ended his season.
It's the kind of night that will sell out on emotion alone.
Fans will soak up the intensity of that game, because they won't be back at Moda Center for a while.
Oct. 23 to Nov. 6 — Portland Leaves Town
Two days after the opener, the Blazers travel to Sacramento. Four days after that, they face Luka Doncic and the Los Angeles Lakers.
After one more home game on Oct. 29 against Memphis, marking Morant's first game against his former team, Portland hits the road for Utah on Halloween. It starts a stretch of four straight road games for Portland, going to Denver, Phoenix and Los Angeles again.
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They don't find themselves back at Moda Center until Nov. 7.
Nov. 13 to 23 — A Real Test
A four-game road trip is tough, but the Blazers will have to face it again and some in the following weeks.
Beginning Nov. 13, Portland opens a six-game road trip that starts in Sacramento before moving into a back-to-back in Minnesota against a Timberwolves team that added LaMelo Ball to an Anthony Edwards-led core already among the West's best.
From there, the trip only gets heavier.
Go deeper into November, and Portland will come to find out that the toughest part of their schedule all season is in the opening month.
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Portland plays Oklahoma City twice, Minnesota twice, and San Antonio twice, with Denver, Philadelphia, New York and the Lakers all mixed in.
Twelve of the Blazers' first 17 games are on the road. Six of the 15 games played in November are at home at Moda Center.
Dec. 17 to 27
If November didn't test the Blazers hard enough, a matching six-game road trip lands a month later during the second half of December.
Between the two trips, the Blazers could be answering questions about the identity of this team before they've played a home game in front of a comfortable rotation.
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The NBA doesn't build its schedules around team standings from the year prior. Portland's slate reflects a team the league now expects to be good, not one it protects.
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A year ago, a stretch like this would have been the excuse to tank.
This year, with Morant, Lillard, Deni Avdija (who had his breakout season last year) and Donovan Clingan, it's a legitimate measuring stick.
If the Blazers are still within shooting distance of the play-in picture when they finally get a long homestand in late winter, the brutal start will look like a gift.
If not, that is where the season starts to slip away.
