NBA Christmas Day Games Tickets

The first NBA game played on Christmas Day came in 1947, a year after the National Basketball Association'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 1998, when a lockout canceled half the 1998–99 season. In the early 1980s, the New York Knicks put on a show three years in a row. In one game (1984), hall-of-fame forward Bernard King scoring 60 points—the most ever scored by a player on Christmas Day. 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.

After a season's NBA Finals comes to an end, officials from both the NBA and the network that broadcast the NBA meet to plan the schedule of games for the holiday during the upcoming season. In most cases, two of the teams that play during the holiday are the teams that reached the finals the previous season, and often a rematch of the NBA Finals is scheduled. The NBA usually tries to have the best players play against each other. Some examples of this include 2009 and 2010, 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.

2022 NBA Christmas Day Games

As one of the most important days on the NBA's calendar, these games are once again star-studded and feature rematches from the previous year's playoffs. Though the regular season will already be two months old by the time Christmas rolls around, the full slate of games also serves as the unofficial start of the NBA season for some casual fans. The 2022-23 season will mark the 75th edition of the NBA on Christmas Day. Every year since the league's biggest teams, brightest stars and best up-and-coming players have faced off on the holiday. This year's Christmas Day games will be no different.

Here are the five games that should bring plenty of excitement to the whole nation on Christmas Day;

1. Knicks vs. 76ers at Madison Square Garden

2. Lakers vs. Mavericks at American Airlines Center

3. Bucks vs. Celtics at TD Garden

4. Grizzlies vs. Warriors at Chase Center

5. Suns vs. Nuggets at Ball Arena