As well as one of the opening night games on the league calendar, all five Christmas Day games have also been reported. As one of the most important days on the NBA calendar, these games are usually star-studded and sometimes feature rematches from the previous year’s playoffs or pit two of the league’s top stars against each other. Although the regular season will already be two months away before Christmas rolls around, the full slate of games also serves as the unofficial kickoff to the NBA season for some casual fans. While nothing has been made official yet, here are the five games expected to take place over Christmas: The NBA has certainly hit the mark with some of the league’s top stars, both young and old, and all of these featured matchups have enticing history. The Warriors vs. Grizzlies matchup will be a rematch of last season’s Western Conference semifinals, where both teams didn’t shy away from talking trash, even after the Grizzlies were swept by the Warriors. When the Warriors finally won the championship, several Golden State players made sure to poke some not-so-subtle holes in the Grizzlies, including Draymond Green and Ja Morad, hoping their two teams would meet on Christmas Day. Well, Green and Morant got their wish and this matchup will certainly be highly anticipated. While the Lakers and Mavericks don’t have the playmaking junk that the Warriors and Grizzlies have, they will have the face of the league in LeBron James and one of the future faces of the league in Luka Doncic. These two teams met on Christmas Day two seasons ago, resulting in the Mavericks running away in Los Angeles, but a lot has happened since that matchup in 2020. The Mavericks are advancing to the Western Conference Finals because of Doncic’s MVP-level performance in throughout the playoffs, and the Lakers will try to return to the playoffs after missing the cut last season. It’s hard to get a read on how this game will turn out, given that both teams could still make roster moves before this game, but it should be more entertaining than the matchup we got two seasons ago. The third game listed on this list may be a preview of the Western Conference Finals as the Nuggets host the Suns. Denver should be fully healthy with Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. expected to be back in the starting lineup after both players missed all of last season with injuries. Then at the center of it all is two-time league MVP Nikola Jokic. He’ll have some help again as Denver hopes to prove its place in the championship conversation. The Nuggets reportedly host the Suns, according to the Denver Post, in what is a rematch of the Western Conference semifinals from two seasons ago. The Nuggets were without Murray in that playoff series against the Suns, so now they’ll be able to show Phoenix what it’s like to play a full-strength Denver team. The Knicks and Sixers matchup might not be the most exciting matchup on this list, but it does feature some of the best players in the league, Joel Embiid and James Harden. While the Knicks don’t have the flashiest names on their roster to match Embiid and Harden, it will be a good test for a New York team that hopes its big offseason acquisition of Jalen Brunson can elevate that roster to a playoff contender. . The latest reported matchup between the Celtics and the Bucks is a rematch of last season’s Eastern Conference semifinals. In one of their best playoff series a season ago, the Bucks lost to the Celtics in seven games, all without their second-best player in Khris Middleton, who sprained his MCL in the first round of the postseason. Middleton recently underwent wrist surgery in July but is expected to return near the start of the season, so he will be ready to go by the time this rematch takes place. However, this matchup could look very different if the Celtics are able to make a trade to land Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant. We’ll have to wait and see what happens with the Durant sweepstakes, but regardless of what happens with that, this matchup — like the rest of the full slate of games — won’t be short of excitement on Christmas Day.
