The 2018-2019 NBA schedule has been released and the Portland Trail Blazers will now get set to defend their Northwest Division crown.
The opening group of games for the squad is extremely rough. In their first sixteen games, the Blazers face just two teams that finished below .500 last season, and one of them is the re-tooled, LeBron-led Los Angeles Lakers. In fact, Portland will get to know the new-look Lakers very well, facing them three times over that period.
Coming through Thanksgiving, Portland has its second longest road trip of the season at a stately six games, with the team traveling 7,273 miles start to finish.