NBA Christmas Day, Opening Night time video games function Lakers, Warriors, Thunder: Sources

The first NBA sport on NBC in 23 years will function the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder in opposition to maybe their chief competitors within the West, and the Cleveland Cavaliers are again on Christmas Day for the primary time for the reason that LeBron James period, league and community sources confirmed to The Athletic on Friday.

The Rockets, who completed second within the West final season and traded for Kevin Durant, will play the Thunder on ring evening on Oct. 21 — as is custom within the NBA — adopted by the Golden State Warriors on the Los Angeles Lakers.

This coming season is the primary of an 11-year, $75 billion nationwide TV contract for the NBA, which includes a new partnership with Amazon and a reuniting of the league with NBC. ESPN and ABC stay companions — and can carry Christmas Day video games per traditional — whereas TNT is now not a league companion.

ESPN was the primary to report NBC’s opening evening slate in addition to the 5 Christmas Day video games, that are:

• Cleveland on the New York Knicks
• San Antonio at Oklahoma City
• Houston on the Lakers
• Dallas at Golden State
• Minnesota at Denver.

The Cavs completed first within the East within the 2024-25 season and have developed a rivalry with the Knicks. The group that beat them each within the playoffs final season — the Indiana Pacers — misplaced star level guard Tyrese Haliburton to a torn Achilles in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, and they didn’t re-sign middle Myles Turner in free company.

The Spurs ought to have star Victor Wembanyama again from his blood clot that value him the top of final season. Depending on what he decides career-wise, this might be LeBron’s final Christmas sport, and the Timberwolves and Nuggets performed one another on Christmas final season.

The Cavs final performed on Christmas in 2017, in an NBA Finals rematch in opposition to the Warriors.

Cleveland and New York are the one two East groups taking part in on Christmas, in no small half because of accidents to stars on different groups. Not solely is Haliburton out for the Pacers this season, however Celtics star Jayson Tatum is not going to play because of a torn Achilles — a probable consider Boston not showing on the league’s marquee day within the common season.

The NBA will face competitors from the NFL once more on Christmas Day. Last 12 months, it needed to face off in opposition to two soccer video games; this 12 months, there shall be three.

The Cowboys will play the Commanders at 1 p.m. ET, the Lions and Vikings are set to kick off at 4:30 p.m. ET, and the Broncos and Chiefs will play at 8:15 p.m. ET. All three of these video games shall be streamed — the primary two on Netflix and the latter on Amazon — so the NBA could have linear tv all to itself.

Last 12 months’s Christmas Day video games didn’t lack viewers. It was probably the most seen slate of video games in 5 years, in keeping with Nielsen, averaging 5.34 million viewers.

The Lakers-Warriors prime-time sport averaged a mixed 7.91 million viewers between ESPN and ABC. It was a hearty quantity for the NBA.

(Photo: Angela Weiss /AFP by way of Getty Images)