Indiana Pacers forward Obi Toppin helps a young fan hang from a basketball rim after a practice in Mexico City, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026, a day ahead of their NBA basketball game against the Denver Nuggets.·(AP Photo/Fernando Llano)·Source: WBN
The Denver Nuggets play the Indiana Pacers at Arena CDMX on Saturday at 5 p.m. ET (4 p.m. local). It’s the 35th NBA game played in Mexico and the 16th in the regular season. Mexico has hosted more NBA games than any country outside the United States and Canada.
How to Watch
United States: NBA TV and NBA League Pass. Mexico: ESPN. Tickets: Sold out.
The Altitude Team Goes Higher
Denver plays its home games at 5,280 feet, the highest in the NBA. Mexico City sits at about 7,350 feet. The Nuggets have been to Mexico once before, for a 2006 preseason game against the Warriors.
Baseball knows the feeling. At Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú, breaking balls break less and fly balls carry, which makes the ballpark a hitter’s paradise, as WBN’s Leif Skodnick wrote from the Baseball Champions League in March.
Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic waves during practice, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026, in Mexico City, a day ahead of their NBA basketball game against Indiana Pacers. — (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Nikola Jokić has 201 career triple-doubles. Nine more would pass Russell Westbrook for the NBA record.
Denver Nuggets forward Trevon Brazile controls a ball during a practice a day ahead of the NBA basketball game against Indiana Pacers in Mexico City, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026. — (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
The Nembhard Brothers
Andrew and Ryan Nembhard, brothers from Canada, could face each other as pros for the first time. Andrew starts for the Pacers and is averaging a career-best 19 points and 6.9 assists. Ryan, three years younger, is on a two-way contract with Denver and has played three games for the Nuggets this season.
Indiana is without Tyrese Haliburton, who is out with a hamstring injury. Pascal Siakam is averaging 21.3 points and 7.1 rebounds.
Mexico City’s Basketball Map
Arena CDMX has hosted every NBA game in Mexico City since it opened in 2012. It is also home to the Capitanes of the NBA G League.
The city’s most famous baseball brand now has a basketball team. The Fundación Alfredo Harp Helú owns the Mexican League’s Diablos Rojos, and in 2024 it launched a Diablos Rojos club in the LNBP. That team won the league title in its first season, the first Mexico City club to do so. It plays at Gimnasio Olímpico Juan de la Barrera, where the Capitanes played from 2017 to 2020. The foundation’s ballpark, Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú, hosted MLB’s Mexico City Series in April, when the Padres and Diamondbacks split two games.
The NBA has also floated Mexico City as an expansion market. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reported that the city came up at a Board of Governors meeting, per Blazer’s Edge.
Spencer Haywood (8) of the U.S. leaps to block a shot by Yugoslavia’s Peter Skanski as the U.S. defeated the Yugoslavia team to win the Summer Olympics gold medal in Mexico City, Oct. 25, 1968. — (AP Photo, File)
Mexico’s NBA Players and Their Baseball Roots
Neither of the NBA’s two Mexican players is in Saturday’s game.
Karim López, a 19-year-old Grizzlies rookie from Hermosillo, became the first Mexican-born player taken in the first round of the NBA Draft when Detroit picked him 21st in June and traded him to Memphis. He spent the previous two seasons with the New Zealand Breakers in Australia’s NBL. His hometown hosts the 2027 Caribbean Series.
Mexico’s Karim Lopez (21) is blocked by Puerto Rico’s Gian Clavell, right, during a FIBA Olympic qualifying tournament basketball game in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Saturday, July 6, 2024. — (AP Photo/Alejandro Granadillo)
Before López, the only Mexican-born player ever drafted was Eduardo Nájera, who played 12 NBA seasons. Nájera told Sports Illustrated he grew up wanting to play baseball like his father, a power-hitting first baseman. He was 6-foot-8 as a high school freshman, and his baseball coach told him to try another sport.
Baseball has had the bigger Mexican pipeline. Sports Illustrated noted that four Mexican-born players made the 2025 MLB All-Star Game, the first time that had happened, while only four Mexican players reached the NBA before López.
Jaime Jaquez Jr., who plays for Mexico’s national team, was traded from Miami to Milwaukee this offseason. He was welcomed as a “right-hander” at UCLA Night at Dodger Stadium in 2022, and he threw out a first pitch at loanDepot park after the Heat drafted him.
Miami Heat first-round pick Jaime Jaquez Jr., right, is congratulated by former Marlins catcher Charles Johnson after Jaquez threw out a ceremonial first pitch before the start of a baseball game between the Miami Marlins and the Colorado Rockies, Friday, July 21, 2023, in Miami. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) — (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)
Día de Muertos Week
Miami Heat Jaime Jaquez Jr., wearing a Day of the Dead mask, poses for the fans before the start of a practice session ahead of Saturday’s game against the Washington Wizards, at the Mexico Arena in Mexico City, Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. — (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
This is the fifth straight year the NBA has played a regular-season game in Mexico. It’s also the third straight year the game falls during Día de Muertos week, and the court will carry a Día de Muertos theme.
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