The debut of the Pistons roster assembled by new president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon and led by newly installed coach J.B. Bickerstaff will come before home fans at Little Caesars Arena. The Pistons open the 2024-25 NBA season by hosting the Indiana Pacers on Oct. 23 to start a very busy early portion of their season.
The Pistons will play 22 games, more than a quarter of their season, before November ends, including five games in the first eight days to conclude October and then 17 games crammed into November.
Notably, the Pistons have a more favorable home stretch this season after playing nine of their final 11 games of 2023-24 on the road. This time around, the Pistons play four of their final five games and seven of their final 11 at Little Caesars Arena.
The Pistons will play 15 back-to-back sets this season – right at the NBA average of 14.9 – with four of them involving home-and-home dates and a fifth coming on consecutive nights at Chicago on Feb. 11-12. The Pistons also get a more favorable break on the quality of their back-to-back sets, holding the rest advantage 13 times while facing a disadvantage 10 times.
Three Pistons games are slated for NBA TV – Nov. 21 vs. Charlotte, Jan. 27 at Cleveland and March 3 at Utah – and one, Feb. 7 vs. Philadelphia, for ESPN. Bickerstaff’s first return to Cleveland, where he led the Cavaliers for the past four-plus seasons, will come in the season’s second game, Oct. 25. The Pistons play a holiday game on Martin Luther King Jr. Day when they visit Houston on Jan. 20 for a 2 p.m. (Eastern) matinee and they’ll host Charlotte in a 1 p.m. matinee on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9.
The Pistons will play two home games in October and eight in November, then only three in December, which concludes with the Pistons sandwiching Christmas with road games at Phoenix and the Los Angeles Lakers on the front end and Sacramento and Denver on the back end. January includes eight home games and features the season’s longest road trip – games at Houston, Atlanta, Orlando, Cleveland and Indiana – over 10 days late in the month.
That’s followed by the season’s longest home stand with Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Charlotte visiting between Jan. 31 and Feb. 9. After the back-to-back at Chicago to lead into the All-Star break, the Pistons resume play on Feb. 21 against the San Antonio Spurs – but in Austin, Texas, 80 miles to the northeast, while the Spurs’ Frost Bank Center hosts its annual rodeo.
The Pistons play nine home games in March, which features the second of their extended Western Conference road swings with dates at Utah, the Los Angeles Clippers, Golden State and Portland from March 3-9. Four of April’s seven games come at Little Caesars Arena as the season ends with a home-and-away set against division rival Milwaukee, April 11 at Detroit and April 13 at Milwaukee.
The NBA Cup games feature the Pistons hosting Miami on Nov. 12 and Milwaukee on Dec. 3 and playing at Toronto on Nov. 15 and Indiana on Nov. 29. Two other mid-December games, one home and one road, will be determined by NBA Cup results.
The defending NBA champion Boston Celtics come to Little Caesars Arena for the season’s second home game, Oct. 26, and again on Feb. 26. The Pistons will only travel once to Boston (Dec. 4). Philadelphia and Washington are the two other Eastern Conference rivals the Pistons will visit just once, while Brooklyn, Miami and Orlando are the three conference opponents that will come to Detroit only once.
Western Conference champion Dallas makes its annual Detroit stop on Jan. 31. Stars of the gold medal-winning USA Basketball team making their stops at Little Caesars Arena include LeBron James and Anthony Davis of the Los Angeles Lakers on Nov. 4, Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors on Jan. 9 and Kevin Durant and Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns on Jan. 18. Victor Wembanyama, who led France to the silver medal, will make a late-season trek to Detroit on March 25.
Fridays and Saturdays will be busy at Little Caesars Arena as the Pistons will play eight dates on each day with four Sunday dates meaning 20 games will come on weekend dates.
