Christmas Day in the NBA is unlike anything else. For years, basketball has been the sport to dominate the holiday season, and the league always tends to display the biggest markets with the biggest names on one of the biggest days of the year. As if opening presents under the Christmas tree wasn't fun enough, basketball fans have been treated with gifts from Adam Silver through the years, with the likes of LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, and other legendary talents playing their hearts out as part of the NBA Christmas Day schedule.
From budding rivalries to old-school showdowns to rematches of recent championship series, the NBA has always held the Christmas Day schedule in high regard. This is one of the most marketable days of the year for the league, which is why the best of the best are always playing during the holiday season.
Last year, all five matchups featured some sort of storyline. The Milwaukee Bucks and New York Knicks were two of the better teams in the Eastern Conference. The Denver Nuggets faced off with the Golden State Warriors in a battle between two teams that had previously met in the playoffs. Then there were two rivalry games: the Philadelphia 76ers vs. the Miami Heat, followed by the Dallas Mavericks and the Phoenix Suns.
Of course, the marquee matchup that the league based their Christmas Day matchups around was the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers renewing their long-time rivalry.
Once again, the NBA has put together what they believe to be the best Christmas Day slate. Even though some of the matchups do feature the key names and teams we are so accustomed to seeing, the league failed to recognize the rising interest in other great organizations around the league.
Who is playing on Christmas Day?
What do NBA fans want to see during the Christmas Day games? It is obvious that LeBron James and Stephen Curry are at the top of the list. But how many times does the league need to jam the Warriors-Lakers matchup into our minds until enough is enough?
Well, the NBA is, and has always been, about money.
These are two of the most marketable franchises in the league, with two of the greatest stars of all time facing off against one another. It is pretty clear as to why this is a Christmas Day matchup. Then again, putting this game on Christmas doesn't make it any more special than it will be when they face off at some point in the middle of the regular season.
The Celtics taking on the Philadelphia 76ers is another big matchup for the league to advertise. Not only are the defending champions playing on Christmas, which has become a given through the years, but they will be taking on a new-look 76ers team with Paul George joining the mix with Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid. Sure, this is going to be a good game.
There is then a rematch of the Western Conference Finals with the Minnesota Timberwolves and Dallas Mavericks. Luka Doncic and Anthony Edwards are two superstars in their own right, so it's clear to see why the league would want this matchup highlighted on the schedule.
The final two matchups the NBA scheduled for Christmas make sense when you dive deep into them, but from a general basketball fan's perspective, they are likely going to be the two least-watched games. The only East vs. West game features the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs facing off. Last time these two teams played in March, Jalen Brunson scored 61 points and Victor Wembanyama had a 40-point, 20-rebounds double-double.
The Knicks are expected to be one of the best teams in the league this upcoming year, while Wembanyama will become a first-time All-Star with a struggling Spurs franchise.
It is expected that the Denver Nuggets and Phoenix Suns will be the final two teams to play on Christmas Day. Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, and Devin Booker will all be on the court for this matchup between two teams that don't really like one another. Again, this will be a matchup that features great basketball being played, but neither team won the Western Conference last year, and the Suns barely avoided having to earn their playoff spot via the play-in tournament.
As a whole, this is a pretty underwhelming Christmas Day schedule. Instead of taking into account the teams that are beginning to increase the league's viewership and highlighting matchups featuring fierce rivalries, the league has put the spotlight on their aging stars once again. There is nothing wrong with this, as the media can't get enough of Steph vs. LeBron, but the NBA had a golden chance to usher in the new era of talent, while also giving fans some great rivalry games on Christmas.
Who should be playing on Christmas?
Aside from wanting great games to be played, NBA fans want to see action on Christmas Day. Sure, it's great to see Curry and James renew their rivalry, but this has turned more into a friendship and respect for one another during the later stages of their careers than an actual rivalry. These Christmas matchups across the NBA should be filled with fiery play and fierce competition where the players truly don't like one another, making the games mean a little bit more.
For starters, let's talk about the Milwaukee Bucks and Indiana Pacers, two teams that aren't going to be playing on Christmas Day this year. These two teams played one another five times during the regular season, one of which was during the semifinals of the very first NBA In-Season Tournament. Another matchup between them involved Giannis Antetokounmpo scoring a franchise-high 64 points and then chasing the Pacers down the tunnel to try and retrieve what he believed to be the game ball. On top of everything else, Milwaukee and Indiana renewed their rivalry during the playoffs in a six-game first-round series that the Pacers won.
Drama is the one word that comes to mind when thinking about the Bucks and Pacers being on the court. If the league truly wanted to highlight some of the best matchups in the league, why wouldn't they throw these two teams on the Christmas Day schedule? Quite honestly, the NBA is probably afraid of the Bucks and Pacers fighting one another physically on Christmas, a situation that could very much get out of hand. From a fan's perspective, though, this is surely one of the more anticipated battles during the 2024-25 season.
After all, it seems like Giannis himself wants to play on Christmas after posting, “No Christmas game?!” on social media.
One other matchup that would've been great to see on the NBA's Christmas Day schedule features two teams that are already scheduled to play in two different games. The Celtics and Knicks are expected to finish first and second in the Eastern Conference during the 2024-25 season. New York came up one game short of making this the Eastern Conference Finals series in the postseason.
The fact of the matter is that these are definitely the two-best teams on paper in the East, so why aren't they playing on Christmas? This is a very anticipated matchup, and the league missed a golden opportunity here. Giving the Knicks Wembanyama and the Spurs on Christmas is certainly marketable, which is why Silver and the league office likely went in that direction, especially after the thriller they played several months ago.
Another matchup that would've been great to see features a cross-conference game between the 76ers and Nuggets. The main reason why this would've been such a thrilling Christmas Day game is due to the fact that it features Jokic and Embiid, the two players that have won the last four MVP awards. These two centers renewed their rivalry in the Olympics this summer, yet it always seems like they dodge one another during the regular season. We need to see Embiid and Jokic play one another, which is why this would've been a terrific night-cap game in Denver.
Look, the NBA wasn't going to miss out on the opportunity to put the Warriors and Lakers on the schedule. But why do they have to play each other?
The Warriors taking on the Mavericks in San Francisco would've delivered plenty of drama with Klay Thompson's return. Not to mention, the Warriors and Mavs have long been rivals in the Western Conference. The last Christmas Day game could've been a passing of the torch kind of matchup with LeBron and the Lakers taking on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder.
While they are young, the Thunder have a chance to be the next-best dynasty for many years to come. Gilgeous-Alexander has ascended to being a legitimate MVP candidate, and there would be no better challenge for the Lakers at this point in the season than taking on a Thunder team that went 57-25 to claim the 1-seed in the conference last year.
The problem with the 2024 NBA Christmas Day schedule is that not much effort or thought was put into it. Instead of having five very unique and high-level games, the league is throwing all of its eggs into the Warriors-Lakers basket, hoping that drives viewership for the rest of the games.
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