Every year the NBA hosts its most exciting games for Christmas Day. It is a Christmas present for all of the basketball fans because Christmas Day is the day where Christmas spirit and basketball drama collide to form a great and intense game.

The day opens up at noon when the Boston Celtics take on their biggest rival, the New York Knicks, in New York. This is a classic showdown, these teams absolutely hate each other so this game should be a very interesting one. Despite both teams not having the best winning record, the atmosphere of Christmas Day makes the game a lot more intense than it already is. Both of these team recruited young talent to their teams so this will be a battle of the rookies.

From New York, we head over to Cleveland Ohio, where the Golden State Warriors take on the Cleveland Cavaliers. This is what most say will be the game of the day. These two teams met up last year in the NBA finals where the warriors blew a 3-1 lead in the series to lose and for Cleveland to win their first NBA Championship ever. Kevin Durant vs. Lebron James, Stephen Curry vs. Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson vs. Kevin Love. These will be the match upsNBA for that game that starts at 2:30 pm Eastern Time, so 1:30 Central Time here for,Texas.

After that amazing game, the Chicago Bulls will take on the San Antonio Spurs in San Antonio. Dwayne Wade, Rajon Rondo, and Jimmy Butler will all play on Christmas with Chicago for the first time ever. Even though Chicago has these great players, San Antonio has a great defense with Kawhi Leonard, Pau Gasol, and Lamarcus Aldridge. These game will be very fast paced with a lot of highlights and lots of action, both on the offense and defensive side of the ball.

For the last game of the day, the Los Angeles Clippers will take on the Los Angeles Lakers in a classic Christmas Day game. Last year, these two teams ended in a 94-84 victory for the Clippers. During these games, Staples Center is always packed. The Lakers have gotten off to a much better start this year compared to last year so this game shouldn’t be as easy as it was last year for the Clippers. Even though the Lakers are without Kobe Bryant, they have the rookie D’Angelo Russell leading them to victory.

All of these Christmas Day games will be a nail biter because most of these games have a huge possibility of being playoff games as the season goes on. Hopefully the games make people’s Christmas days start off right.