Adding Kawhi Leonard wasn’t enough to net the Raptors a Christmas Day game (fist pump), but that doesn’t mean the Raptors won’t be heavily mixed into the NBA’s national TV schedule in 2018-19.
As of Wednesday’s preliminary schedule release, we already know of two games that will see the new-look Raptors under the national spotlight in the season’s opening week alone.
America’s first glimpse at the Raptors will come via ESPN on Friday, October 19th as the Boston Celtics will visit Scotiabank Arena in the Greg Monroe Revenge Game. It’ll mark Toronto’s first exposure to a Celtics team with a presumably healthy Gordon Hayward, and could very well be the first glimpse we get of the 2019 Eastern Conference Finals match-up.