The NBA’s Christmas Day schedule is here.
The Athletic’s Shams Charania released the league’s slate of top games for Dec. 25 on Thursday night, which should make for another big day of basketball even as the NFL tries to ease its way into the holidays with a pair of games again this Christmas.
While we wait for the full schedule to be released, here’s a look at the five games that will reportedly take place on Christmas Day this season.
The New York Knicks, as always, will host a Christmas Day game to kick off the holiday break. The Knicks will host Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs in the first game of the day at Madison Square Garden.
While the Spurs are coming off a fifth straight season in which they had a losing record and missed the playoffs, and the Knicks are coming off their best season in over a decade, the battle between Wembanyama and the Knicks is sure to be an entertaining one.
The Dallas Mavericks, coming off their first NBA Finals appearance since 2011, will host a Christmas Day game this year. They will face the Minnesota Timberwolves at American Airlines Arena in a rematch of the most recent Western Conference Finals, which Luka Dončić and the Mavericks won 4-1 to reach the Finals. The Timberwolves went 55-26 last season to earn their third straight playoff appearance, which was their first trip to the conference finals in two decades.
Although Dončić and the Mavericks easily defeated the Timberwolves in their series last spring, a Christmas Day battle between the two clubs should be great. And it will offer a good look at the Mavericks under Klay Thompson, who signed with the club after his long run with the Golden State Warriors.
While it won’t be the game of the night, this Eastern Conference showdown is the best game of the day.
The reigning NBA champions will host the Philadelphia 76ers at TD Garden in what could easily be a preview of a thrilling playoff series a few months later. The 76ers have reloaded around Joel Embiid, adding Paul George to their roster after failing to make it past the first round of the playoffs earlier this spring. The Celtics will enter the season as favorites to repeat as champions as well, and it appears they won’t miss a beat in their effort to defend their title.
If there’s one game to watch on Christmas Day amidst family celebrations, this is it.
It’s unclear how good either club will actually be this season, but the Golden State Warriors will host LeBron James and his son, Bronny, in a late game on Christmas.
The Lakers made the playoffs last year via a play-in game but were eliminated by the Denver Nuggets in the first round. The Golden State Warriors missed the playoffs entirely in a rare rough year for the franchise that has been so dominant under head coach Steve Kerr.
It’s not the best matchup of the day, by any stretch. But watching James take on Stephen Curry is sure to be an entertaining game, regardless of where the two teams stand in the West.
The Western Conference’s final Christmas game could be a hit or miss.
The Denver Nuggets, with three-time MVP Nikola Jokić and coach Jamal Murray, are easily one of the best teams in the Western Conference and are more than capable of making their second NBA Finals in three years next spring. But the Suns, despite Devin Booker and Kevin Durant on their roster, have seemed to struggle in recent years. They just lost in the first round of the playoffs and hired Mike Budenholzer to replace Frank Vogel as head coach, just a year after Vogel did the same with Monty Williams.
On paper, this game seems to have the makings of a classic Christmas pageant, but given the current trend of things in Phoenix, it could just be another run-of-the-mill pageant.
