The NBA is heading to Mexico again this season and the Miami Heat will join the Oklahoma City Thunder and Brooklyn Nets for two exciting games in December. The NBA titled this the NBA Global Games in 2016 when the Phoenix Suns took on the Dallas Mavericks and San Antonio Spurs. This year, they are advertising it as the NBA Mexico City Games 2017 and it will be the Nets who battle the Thunder and Heat in back-to-back games.
NBA Mexico City games
The 2016-17 NBA season was the first time that the league ever held two games in Mexico in the same season.
Those games took place just seven months ago at the Mexico City Arena as they held them at the start of January. In those two games, the Dallas Mavericks beat the Pheonix Suns and then the Suns avenged the loss by upsetting the San Antonio Spurs.
At the time, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in an official statement that the NBA has played games in Mexico for 25 years. "we're thrilled that for the first time we are bringing two regular-season games to Mexico City," Silver said in his statement.
2017-18 Mexico games
This year's games will take place earlier, with the matchups on Dec. 7 and Dec. 9. The first game will see the Brooklyn Nets battle the Oklahoma City Thunder. The second game will have the Miami Heat take on the Nets two days later.
In June, the Nets reported that they would be the home team in the two Mexico City games this year but no opponents were named. The two NBA games will once again take place in Mexico City’s Ciudad Mexico Arena
This is exciting for Mexican NBA fans. The Brooklyn Nets head into the 2017-18 season with an interesting new look. Gone is Brook Lopez and replacing him is D'Angelo Russell, who was supposed to be the future of the Los Angeles Lakers.
While disappointing, there are Nets fans who hope he will have a fresh start this year.
However, the biggest excitement comes in the two opponents of the Nets in this year's NBA Mexico City Games. The first is the Oklahoma City Thunder and last season's NBA MVP Russell Westbrook. The Thunder were a playoff team last season and added Paul George, which almost assures they will be even better in their second year after Kevin Durant left the team.
The second game might be just as exciting. The Miami Heat started the 2016-17 NBA season in a rebuilding process but great coaching and players with something to prove turned the team into a playoff contender, just missing out on the postseason due to a tiebreaker. The NBA Mexico City Games will see a team in the Miami Heat team that should make the postseason with stars like Goran Dragic, Dion Waiters, Hassan Whiteside, Kelly Olynyk and more.
