Community Shootaround: NBA’s Christmas Day Schedule

Merry Christmas from the Hoops Rumors staff!

As usual, December 25 features a full slate of five NBA games that tipped off at noon Eastern time and will run well past midnight. The Cavaliers visited the Knicks at Madison Square Garden in the day’s early game, which will be followed by four Western Conference matchups:

• 2:30 pm ET: San Antonio Spurs (22-7) at Oklahoma City Thunder (26-4)
• 5:00 pm ET: Dallas Mavericks (12-19) at Golden State Warriors (15-15)
• 8:00 pm ET: Houston Rockets (17-10) at Los Angeles Lakers (19-9)
• 10:30 pm ET: Minnesota Timberwolves (20-10) at Denver Nuggets (21-8)

Having the Spurs visit the defending champion Thunder on Christmas Day, with Victor Wembanyama coming off a major health issue and San Antonio having won just 34 games last season, was a risk. But it has paid off in a major way for the NBA — the Spurs have already upset the Thunder twice this month, and this will be just the second time in the past 40 years that the Western Conference’s top two teams have faced one another on December 25, per the league (Twitter link).

The rest of the teams currently holding playoff spots in the West – the Rockets, Lakers, Timberwolves, and Nuggets – will be in action in the final two games of the day, while the Warriors/Mavericks contest is the only contest to feature two teams outside the top six. However, Dallas has looked much improved as of late, having gone 7-4 after a 5-15 start. With Anthony Davis healthy and Cooper Flagg beginning to show his star-level upside more consistently, that bout with Stephen Curry and Golden State is hardly a bust.

With so much uncertainty surrounding the top Eastern Conference teams entering the season, the NBA was probably right to lean heavily on Western matchups, and it looks like the league picked the right teams. The Suns are the only top-eight club in the conference not in action today, and the Mavs – thanks to the presence of Davis and Flagg – are a compelling alternative despite ranking 11th.

While it’s disappointing not to see the 24-6 Pistons in action today, the league probably couldn’t have predicted that Detroit would be this good in the first half. Sticking with the Cavaliers and Knicks was a safe choice — Cleveland and New York were two of the last four Eastern Conference teams left standing in 2024/25, and the other two (Boston and Indiana) are both missing a star player due to an Achilles tear.

What do you think? Are you happy with the NBA’s Christmas Day slate? Would you have shuffled around any of the matchups, or avoided scheduling any of these 10 teams in favor of another? Which of the rest of today’s games are you most looking forward to?

Head to the comment section to share your thoughts, and enjoy the holiday basketball!