schedule reported by ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania <\/a>is correct (and it almost certainly is):<\/p>\n\u2022 Cleveland Cavaliers at New York Knicks
\u2022 San Antonio Spurs at Oklahoma City Thunder
\u2022 Houston Rockets at Los Angeles Lakers
\u2022 Dallas Mavericks at Golden State Warriors
\u2022 Minnesota Timberwolves at Denver Nuggets<\/p>\n
Here are a few quick thoughts on that list:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Once again the NBA has leaned into its older generation of stars \u2014 LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant \u2014 but it has done a better job of making sure the up-and-coming generation is in the spotlight, too. We are getting Victor Wembanyama, Anthony Edwards, Cooper Flagg, Amen Thompson, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams and Darius Garland. It\u2019s better than past years, certainly better than recycling Giannis Antetokounmpo and a Bucks team with a lot of question marks just for the star power.<\/p>\n
\u2022 There are only two Eastern Conference teams on that list, the opening game of the day between the Knicks and Cavaliers. What that speaks to is the perceived gap heading into this season between the deep West and the East in a season where Boston\u2019s Jayson Tatum and Indiana\u2019s Tyrese Haliburton will not be playing on Christmas Day as they recover from torn Achilles (if those guys had been healthy and those teams didn\u2019t try to save money by trading away or letting key players walk, the Celtics and Pacers would have been busy on Christmas). <\/p>\n
\u2022 That Cavaliers vs. Knicks game might be the best game of the day. <\/p>\n
\u2022 During last season\u2019s NBA Finals, both the Thunder and Pacers cited not being invited to play on Christmas Day as motivation for them during the season. Which team could be that squad this year? Keep an eye on young star Paolo Banchero and the Orlando Magic, they should have been on the bubble for making it to this day. Cade Cunningham and Detroit, as well as Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks, could also use this as fuel.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Did the NBA miss an opportunity by having Luka Doncic\u2019s current and former teams both playing on Christmas but not facing each other?<\/p>\n
\u2022 Wembanyama and the Spurs against the defending champion Thunder could be the NBA\u2019s best rivalry for the rest of this decade, putting in a prime slot on Christmas Day speaks to how the league office sees it that way. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Next week, the 2025-26 NBA schedule will come out, but some of the highlights always tend to leak…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":131134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[1260,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-131133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114997581766155990","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}