The NBA has confirmed its five-game schedule for Christmas Day 2026, featuring a Finals rematch, major rivalries and several of the league's biggest stars.
San Antonio will visit the defending champion New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden to open the day in a rematch of the 2026 NBA Finals.
Miami then travels to Boston before Philadelphia visits the Los Angeles Lakers, giving LeBron James his first game back in Los Angeles since leaving the Lakers for the 76ers.
Oklahoma City visits Minnesota in the fourth game before Denver and Golden State close the Christmas schedule.
All five games will be broadcast nationally on ABC and ESPN.
Lean Edge Thoughts...
Christmas Day schedules are supposed to showcase the NBA's biggest teams and players.
This one has something better than star power alone.
It has history.
San Antonio visiting New York is the obvious place to start.
The Spurs and Knicks have barely had time to forget the 2026 NBA Finals before being placed back on the same court at Madison Square Garden.
New York won that series to claim its first championship since 1973, while Victor Wembanyama and San Antonio announced themselves as a team capable of competing for the title considerably earlier than many expected.
Christmas therefore gives the Spurs an early opportunity to measure themselves against the team that ultimately stopped them.
For New York, it is another chance to demonstrate that last season was the beginning of something rather than the end of the journey.
Then there is Philadelphia against the Lakers.
That game barely needs any additional promotion.
LeBron James spent eight seasons in Los Angeles and won the 2020 championship with the Lakers before leaving for Philadelphia.
Now he returns to Crypto.com Arena wearing a 76ers uniform.
And Luka Dončić will be waiting on the other side.
There is even the possibility of another piece of NBA history.
LeBron and Bronny James became the first father and son to play together in an NBA game while both were Lakers. If both appear on Christmas Day, they could become the first father and son to play against each other in an NBA game.
That transforms an already significant homecoming into something potentially unique.
Miami-Boston offers a different type of familiarity.
Those franchises have repeatedly collided in the postseason during the 2020s, but Miami now arrives with Giannis Antetokounmpo at the centre of a completely reshaped roster.
That gives one of the league's established rivalries a fresh dynamic.
Oklahoma City at Minnesota may not carry the same historical weight, but it has plenty of current relevance.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Anthony Edwards are already among the faces of the league, while Minnesota's new-look roster gives the matchup another layer of intrigue.
And then the NBA finishes with two players who have spent years redefining what is possible offensively.
Stephen Curry against Nikola Jokić.
Curry changed the geometry of basketball with his shooting.
Jokić changed expectations of what an offence could ask its centre to do.
They have very different games, but both have forced the rest of the league to rethink how basketball can be played.
There is also something refreshing about this particular Christmas schedule.
Not every game needs an artificial storyline manufactured around it.
Spurs-Knicks already has the Finals.
Philadelphia-Lakers already has LeBron.
Miami-Boston already has rivalry history.
And Denver-Golden State already has two generational players.
The NBA simply had to put them on the schedule.
LEAN EDGE VERDICT: Christmas Day works best when the games have meaning before the ball is even tipped, and this year's schedule delivers that almost everywhere. The Finals rematch at Madison Square Garden is a perfect opener, while LeBron James returning to Los Angeles could become one of the defining games of the season. Add Giannis in Miami, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander against Anthony Edwards and a Curry-Jokić finale, and the NBA has built a Christmas slate that sells itself.
