Predicting NBA’s Christmas Day schedule: Lakers get marquee matchup

It has become a tradition for the NBA to give fans great regular-season matchups on Christmas Day and as one of the biggest teams in the league, the Los Angeles Lakers are almost always featured. Even when the team has been bad they have gotten the spotlight of playing on Christmas.

It is given that the Lakers will play on Christmas this year with LeBron James and Anthony Davis surrounded by a great roster. And while these games mean just as much as any other regular-season game, the hope is that LA can be better than it has historically on Christmas. The Lakers are 24-25 on Christmas and have lost the last two years.

There are five Christmas Day games for fans to enjoy and before the league officially releases the teams playing on the holiday, we wanted to give our best shot of creating an intriguing Christmas Day slate.

Lakers get marquee matchup in 2023 NBA Christmas Day games prediction

9:00 a.m. PT: Milwaukee Bucks at New York Knicks 

What is better than Christmas in New York City? While the Knicks may not be on the list of elite title contenders, New York is a playoff team playing in a massive market that absolutely is going to get a Christmas Day game because sports networks love advertising money.

The Knicks have played the opening Christmas Day game in the last two years and the Bucks have been part of the Christmas slate dating back to 2018 when Giannis Antetokounmpo entered his prime as one of the best players in the NBA.

11:30 a.m. PT: Dallas Mavericks at San Antonio Spurs 

The San Antonio Spurs, on Christmas? When you draft Victor Wembanyama that is what happens and while San Antonio is not a big market they have the most hyped-up rookie in the league since LeBron James.

Dallas is always playing on Christmas and this game sells itself. One generational international player in Luka Doncic takes on another (potentially) generational international player in Victor Wembanyama. The NBA gets smart about this game as well and starts it at 11:30 PT, which is 8:30 p.m. over in France.

2:00 p.m. PT: Philadelphia 76ers at Denver Nuggets

The defending champions might want to be on the 7:30 p.m. PT time slot but just because they won a title does not mean they bring in more eyeballs than the Los Angeles Lakers do.

But still, this is a marquee matchup that puts the last two MVPs against each other in Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid. The Nuggets will likely be the much better team but the NBA would be silly to not put this big-man matchup on one of the biggest stages.

5:00 p.m. PT: Boston Celtics at Los Angeles Lakers

This is the biggest spot of the five games in terms of spotlight and this is the game that ESPN would be sending its main broadcast crew to. It has been 15 years since the Lakers and Celtics have played on Christmas Day and it is time for the NBA to make it happen.

Making this game even more interesting is the fact that Doc Rivers would be on the call offering a very unique perspective as the former head coach of the Celtics the last time these two teams met on Christmas.

Plus, putting Jayson Tatum in LA on a grand stage can start the early speculation about whether or not he would actually leave the Celtics for his childhood favorite team in the future.

7:30 p.m. PT: Phoenix Suns at Golden State Warriors

The league would be silly to not give us Kevin Durant vs. Stephen Curry and his former team as the finale for what is shaping out to be an excellent slate of Christmas Day games. The Phoenix Suns are the latest team to try and hoard all-stars like Infinity Stones while the Warriors still have the prestige of being one of the best teams in the league.

There is also the added element of Chris Paul vs. his former team in this game as well. If the schedule makers were smart, they would make sure that this was the first matchup between the two teams.