Games held by the National Basketball Association (NBA) on Christmas Day, December 25, have been an annual tradition since the league's second season in 1947. Since 2008, five games have been played on Christmas each year. Unlike the National Football League (NFL)'s traditional Thanksgiving Day games, the NBA's Christmas Day games have no fixed hosts; rather, they feature some of the best teams and players. Furthermore, the NFL's Thanksgiving Day series features 3 games, rather than 5.
History
The first NBA game played on December 25 came in 1947, a year after the NBA's inception, when the New York Knicks beat the Providence Steamrollers at Madison Square Garden 89–75. Since then, the NBA has played games every year on Christmas Day except in (when a lockout canceled half the ). In contrast, Major League Baseball (MLB) and Major League Soccer (MLS) are in their off-seasons during Christmas, the National Football League (NFL) (prior to 2020) only schedules Christmas games when Christmas falls on the weekend (and even then only schedules games on Christmas occasionally) and the National Hockey League (NHL)'s collective bargaining agreement forbids playing games on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day (celebrated as such in Canada as a statutory holiday, though otherwise the non-holiday day after Christmas in the United States; in seasons in which the latter falls on a Saturday, the break occurs one day earlier, from December 23–25). In college football, the only bowl game traditionally scheduled for Christmas has been the defunct Aloha Bowl (and for one year, its replacement, the ESPN Events-owned Hawaii Bowl; that game itself moved its date specifically due to ESPN and ABC's acquisition of NBA telecasts, including Christmas Day games). Thus, the NBA is the only league to regularly schedule games on December 25.
In the early days, regional proximity dictated most of the matchups. Teams would usually play their geographical rivals to cut down on holiday travel and to allow them to have more time with their families. According to Dr. Jack Ramsay, who coached the Portland Trail Blazers from 1976–77 (their only championship season) to , "Christmas meant being at home with the family and having a game we always won. That was a perfect Christmas to me." He set the record for most coaching victories on Christmas Day with 11, an achievement that Phil Jackson later matched in .
In the early 1980s, the New York Knicks put on a show three consecutive seasons. In one game (), hall-of-fame forward Bernard King scoring 60 points—the most ever scored by a player on Christmas Day, With the advent of television and the excitement caused by these games, the NBA decided to schedule games over the holiday that showcased the best teams and players.
Teams and players While there is no specific system to determine which teams will play the Christmas games, officials from both the NBA and the networks that broadcast the NBA meet during each offseason to plan the schedule of games for the upcoming holiday. The Christmas matchups usually include the teams that played in the previous season's NBA Finals including the current NBA champions since 1995. The NBA also usually tries to feature the league's reigning MVP, as well as the league's other best players. Some examples of this include and , when the defending champions of those seasons, the Los Angeles Lakers played at home against the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2009 and the Miami Heat in 2010, so that they could have showdowns between Kobe Bryant and LeBron James both times.
The Knicks have played more Christmas Day games than any other team, with 58 total. They are 26-32 on the holiday. Their most recent Yuletide appearance came in when they defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers, 126-124, at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks have a checkered history on the 25th. Their 26 wins are the most by a team on Christmas Day, but their 32 losses are also the most.
Conversely, the Charlotte Hornets are the only team to have never played on Christmas Day, dating back to the franchise's foundation in 1988 and including their second incarnation as the Charlotte Bobcats from 2004 onward.
The first Christmas Day game to take place outside the United States took place in 2019 when the Boston Celtics defeated the Toronto Raptors 118–102 at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Canada.
Some players have participated on Christmas Day as both player and coach. Doc Rivers played with the Knicks in and coached the Celtics from to 2013. Phil Jackson, who also participated as a player and coach, has been a part of at least 20 holiday games, coaching on Christmas every year from , with the exception of 1995 and 2004, until his retirement at the end of the . He won his 1,000th game on Christmas Day in 2008. LeBron James currently holds the record for the most games played on Christmas Day, with 20 games.
Many teams and players that have played on this day have worn special uniforms and sneakers. From 2009 to 2011, the Knicks wore their third jersey, the green/orange alternate which they first used exclusively for St. Patrick's Day. During the game between the Heat and the Lakers in 2010, players on both teams wore holiday sneakers. Bryant, Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom wore lime-green Nike sneakers while James and Chris Bosh wore holiday-red shoes with green laces. From to , teams playing on Christmas Day wore a patch featuring the NBA logo inside a snowflake. Between and , the NBA and Adidas produced special uniforms for the Christmas games. All of these uniforms feature a particular theme, such as monochromatic designs ('Big Color') and chrome-treated logos ('Big Logo'). In and 2016, Stance provided Christmas-themed socks for the games.
After Nike became the uniform provider in 2017, no Christmas-themed uniforms were produced. Instead, NBA teams playing on that day wore either "City" or "Statement" alternate uniforms. During the 2018–19 season, a few teams wore a fifth alternate known as "Earned" uniforms; these were given as a reward for making the 2018 NBA playoffs. In 2023, the snowflake patch returned to the back of the NBA uniforms; however, with the exception of the Miami Heat who wore their "Statement" red uniform, teams playing on that day wore either the primary "Association" or "Icon" uniforms. That trend continued in 2024, except no team wore alternate uniforms on that day. In 2025, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Dallas Mavericks wore their "Classic" edition uniforms, while the Denver Nuggets wore their "City" uniform.
The Miami Heat have the best highest Christmas Day win percentage.
Memorable moments The NBA Christmas Day contests have featured some of the most memorable games ever played. Bernard King scored 60 points for the New York Knicks in 1984. Patrick Ewing helped the Knicks come back to beat the Celtics after trailing by 25 points in 1985. He then beat Michael Jordan and the Bulls on a last-second jumper in 1986. Scottie Pippen performed a last-second block in 1994.
The first showdown featuring Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal as opponents occurred on Christmas in 2004. 2009 and 2010 featured faceoffs between LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. Phil Jackson becoming the fastest coach to win 1,000 games (it happened on December 25, 2008). In 2021, LeBron James became the all-time Christmas Day scorer with 422 points, surpassing Kobe Bryant, who scored 383 points.
As a result of a lockout in 2011, Christmas Day was also the season opener. ESPN/ABC analyst Jeff Van Gundy talked about that day, saying, "It's a different opening day than has ever happened in the past and Christmas Day games have always been a big day for the NBA. This unique situation combined with the unveiling of a championship banner for the Mavericks in a finals rematch, and then to see the Lakers and the debut of Mike Brown as head coach, those things are all going to be very compelling."
Rivalries have also been showcased during games played on this day. During the 1990s, every Christmas but one featured a game involving either the New York Knicks or the Chicago Bulls, with the two teams playing against each other twice (in the Bulls championship season of 1992–93 and in ). They would have met a third time in 1998, if there had not been a lockout. The only year during the 1990s in which neither team played on Christmas Day was during the Bulls first championship season in their second three-peat, in 1995–96. During the 2000s, the NBA showcased the Shaq–Kobe feud. Since , each Christmas has featured games involving either the Celtics or the Lakers, with both teams playing on the holiday in and every year since . In a great pairing, the two teams faced off against each in other during the first of the Lakers' most recent back-to-back championship seasons of 2008–09. This was the first meeting between the two teams since the finals of the year before.
The home team is 142–75 in Christmas games. The winning percentage of .654 for the home team on Christmas Day is better than the overall winning percentage for home teams during the regular season or the playoffs since .
Broadcasting
The first telecast of an NBA game on Christmas Day dates back to the league's early years. In 1947, the Providence Steamrollers played in New York against the Knicks on WCBS channel 2 at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. Stan Lomax and Bob Edge called that game. Fifteen minutes later, at 8:15 p.m. Central Time, Joe Wilson broadcast the game between Baltimore Bullets and Chicago Stags for WBKB channel 4 in Chicago.
The first nationally televised Christmas Day NBA broadcast occurred in , when ABC broadcast a game between the Los Angeles Lakers and San Diego Rockets from San Diego. Jerry Gross and Jack Twyman called that broadcast for ABC. ABC would continue to televise Christmas Day games through . Chris Schenkel did play-by-play for ABC during this period with the exception of , when Keith Jackson had the honors. Jack Twyman remained in the color commentating position up until , when Bill Russell took over. From - (with the exception of ), CBS broadcast a game on Christmas Day.
However, it was not until that the games became a household tradition, when CBS broadcast the game between the New Jersey Nets and the New York Knicks and ESPN broadcast the game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers (Sam Smith and Dick Vitale were on the call for ESPN). In the 1990s, NBC broadcast a doubleheader each year on Christmas Day (except in , when there were no games played on Christmas Day due to the 1998–99 NBA lockout) and this has continued after ABC took over in , except that in 2004 and 2006, ABC broadcast only one game. For three years (2004–2006), ABC insisted on having a Christmas Day game between the Miami Heat and the Los Angeles Lakers so that Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal could play against each other. Since ABC took over the NBA, ESPN has also broadcast games on Christmas Day (except in 2006). Since 2009, Christmas Day broadcasts on ESPN and ABC have featured a music video with Mariah Carey singing "All I Want for Christmas Is You." In 2010, Carey added "Oh Santa!"
In , TNT broadcast on Christmas Day for the first time as Marv Albert and Mike Fratello called the game between Washington and Cleveland at Quicken Loans Arena and Kevin Harlan and Reggie Miller called the game between Dallas and Portland at the Rose Garden. This marked the first time that all three networks that cover the NBA (ABC, ESPN, and TNT) produced games on Christmas Day. As Christmas Day fell on a Thursday that year, TNT was given two primetime games as part of their regular TNT NBA Thursday slate (the same scenario also took place in 2014).