The NBA has claimed Christmas Day for its own, and not even the NFL’s money-grabbing spread of games across the weekend can change that. The NBA’s biggest stars and best teams (and, you know, the New York Knicks) are lined up across five games to give basketball fans a holly jolly day to enjoy.
The Cleveland Cavaliers were not on the Christmas Day slate this year, and have not been since 2018. That should change next season given that the Cavs are both very good and have some real star power. They have given fans plenty of Christmas gifts this season and hopefully will give them a Christmas Day contest next year. It’s certainly Donovan Mitchell’s Christmas wish that the Cavs are playing on December 25th next season:
The Cavaliers have a history of excellent basketball on Christmas Day, including in 2016 against the Golden State Warriors. Six months after Kyrie Irving buried the Dubs with his Game 7 shot, he came back with the game-winner in Cleveland on Christmas Day.
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The Athletic published a round-up of the best NBA photos from the month of December ($), and Darius Garland made the list for the Cavaliers. In the Cavs’ statement win over the Milwaukee Bucks last week, the Cleveland point guard “howls in delight” after a critical basket. Check out the piece for that photo and more.
In other news, that win over the Bucks helped to cement the Cavs place at the top of the league, and Bleacher Report’s Andy Bailey certainly agreed. He ranked the Cavaliers first in the entire league in his latest NBA Power Rankings, highlighting Mitchell’s play and speaking into the universe Mitchell’s shot at First Team All-NBA.
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Christmas Day featured five games packed with star talent and interesting narratives, and only the Los Angeles Lakers came into the day as a “bad” team (although Dallas and Golden State certainly haven’t been elite this season). The first game started off with a bang, as the Philadelphia 76ers came back from behind to blow out the New York Knicks behind dominant lines from Joel Embiid and James Harden.
The second game saw the Los Angeles Lakers go into halftime with an 11-point lead against the Mavericks, who promptly outscored LeBron and the Lakers 51-21 in the third quarter, the highest-scoring quarter in an NBA game this season. Game No. 3 was an Eastern Conference showdown between the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics, with Jayson Tatum dropping 20 points in the 3rd and 41 overall to snuff out the Bucks.
The evening began with the short-handed Golden State Warriors hosting the trash-talking Memphis Grizzlies. That ended quickly, as the Warriors shot the lights out and began trash-talking themselves in a 123-109 statement victory. Finally, the best game of the night was the last one, with the Denver Nuggets prevailing in overtime over the Phoenix Suns, with Jokic dropping a ho-ho-hum 41 points, 15 rebounds and 15 assists.
Coming up: The Cleveland Cavaliers are back tonight and will host the Brooklyn Nets on NBA TV at 7:00 PM ET.