Heat schedule features Cavs early, Pelicans on Christmas, tough road stretch

An early date with LeBron James at his house, Christmas with MVP candidate Anthony Davis and a long, hard road stretch in January are among the highlights of the Heat’s 2015-2016 schedule, which was released Wednesday night.

For starters, it’s not going to take Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh very long to get reacquainted with the former member of the Big 3.

Two days after opening the franchise’s 28th season on Oct. 28 at AmericanAirlines Arena against Charlotte, Miami will hit the road to play the first of three regular-season games against the defending Eastern Conference champion Cavaliers.

The good news: It’s Miami’s only trip to Ohio. The other two meetings with Cleveland will be on Saturday nights in Miami, the first on Dec. 5 and the last on March 19.

The Heat will play 11 of its first 16 games at home, including a season-long, seven-game homestand from Nov. 8 to Nov. 23 when the Raptors, Lakers, Jazz, Timberwolves, Kings, 76ers and Knicks come to town.

New York fans, who only had the opportunity to catch one Knicks game in Miami last season, will also be able to see them on Jan. 6 at AmericanAirlines Arena.

The Spurs will visit right before the All-Star break on Feb. 9. Two weeks later, the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors will visit on Feb. 24.

The Heat is scheduled to play on national TV a total of 20 times, up from 16 a year ago.

Nine of those broadcasts are on NBATV, eight are on ESPN, two are on TNT (vs. Oklahoma City on Dec. 3; vs. Chicago on April 7) and one is on ABC.

As previously reported, one of those ESPN games will take place Christmas Day when the Heat hosts the New Orleans Pelicans at noon. It will mark the 11th time in the past 12 years the Heat plays on Christmas Day.

The Heat will also play on New Year’s Day for just the sixth time when it hosts the Dallas Mavericks.

The Heat will play 17 back-to-back sets. Miami went 7-10 on the tail end of back-to-backs last season, and Wade played in just 11 of them.

The Heat’s toughest stretch of the season is when it plays 11 of 12 games on the road.

First, it will head west and play six games from Jan. 8 to Jan. 17 against the Suns, Jazz, Warriors, Clippers, Nuggets and Thunder.

After a quick home game Jan. 19 against the Bucks, the Heat will head back out for a five-game trek against the Wizards, Raptors, Bulls, Nets and Bucks from Jan. 20 to Jan. 29.

Other items of note:

▪ The four Eastern Conference teams the Heat will play only three times this season are Boston and Milwaukee (only once at home), and Philadelphia and Cleveland (only once on the road).

▪ The Heat and Dolphins do not host games on the same day this season. It happened twice last season. The Heat plays on Sunday only five times during the NFL regular season. The Heat does play on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 7, at home against the Clippers at 2 p.m. on ABC.

▪ All 82 games will be televised in South Florida.

▪ Heat partial-season-ticket plans will go on sale Monday, and on Aug. 21 the general public can purchase single-game tickets by logging on to Heat.com beginning at 10 a.m. A limited number of season tickets are available now at HeatSeasonTickets.com.

This story was originally published August 12, 2015 at 7:19 PM with the headline "Heat schedule features Cavs early, Pelicans on Christmas, tough road stretch."