Christmas Day has long been one of the biggest, most important days on the NBA’s calendar. On Thursday night, we learned what the Christmas Day matchups will be will for the upcoming 2024-25 season.
Shams Charania of The Athletic shared the five games that will be played on Dec. 25.
Charania reported on X (formerly Twitter) that the five games will be: San Antonio Spurs at New York Knicks, Minnesota Timberwolves at Dallas Mavericks, Philadelphia 76ers at Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers at Golden State Warriors and Denver Nuggets at Phoenix Suns.
NBA Christmas Day games for the 2024-25 season, per sources:
🎄Spurs at Knicks
🎄Timberwolves at Mavericks
🎄76ers at Celtics
🎄Lakers at Warriors
🎄Nuggets at Suns— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) August 9, 2024
Both NBA Finals teams from 2024 will be in action, but not against each other. In fact, the Western Conference Finals rematch between the Timberwolves and Mavericks will be the only matchup of two playoff opponents from 2024.
That said, the Christmas Day slate does feature several of the league’s best teams. The Spurs and Warriors are the only teams from that group to not make the playoffs in 2024, though Golden State did reach the play-in tournament.
Putting the Spurs, who were one of the NBA’s worst teams in the 2023-24 season, in a Christmas Day game at Madison Square Garden shows how highly the NBA and its network partners regard Victor Wembanyama as he heads into his second season. Conversely, the Lakers and Warriors squaring off shows that, even if the teams have taken a step back, LeBron James and Steph Curry still have immense drawing power.
[Shams Charania on X]
