Warriors-Pelicans gets early tipoff time for national ABC broadcast

A Warriors home game being aired on national television is hardly a surprise in 2024, but the timing of tonight’s tipoff on ABC against the New Orleans Pelicans is worth noting.

The game is scheduled for 5:30 p.m., when a good number of Bay Area fans will still be at work or on their way home.

The Warriors’ weekday home games this season have all been scheduled for 7 p.m., but this game was moved up an hour and a half as the NBA has added a Wednesday night game on ABC to its schedule, tipping off at 5:30 each week.

Last week in the initial game, the Knicks hosted and beat the Bulls in a game that started at 8:30 local time. This is the first game scheduled for the Pacific Time Zone. Next week’s Mavericks at Lakers game will have the same early West Coast tipoff.

In the first round of last year’s playoffs, NBA scheduling pushed Game 6 of the  Warriors-Kings series to 5 p.m. local time on a Friday because the Lakers and Grizzlies were set for a game in Los Angeles on the same night and they were the only games scheduled for the day.

As for the game itself, the Warriors will be without Chris Paul (hand), Gary Payton (hamstring) and Draymond Green (conditioning in return from suspension), while Zion Williamson (quad) and Jose Alvarado (illness) are questionable for the Pelicans as of Wednesday morning.