The NBA on Wednesday officially released the television schedule for the League’s Christmas Day games for the 2018-19 NBA season highlighted by playoff rematches and old faces in new places.
The League announced there will be five games in total aired exclusively on both ESPN and ABC networks, with coverage beginning at 12 p.m.
The first game of the day will be a matchup between The New York Knicks and the Milwaukee Bucks at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks will be playing their 53rd Christmas day game as a franchise, more than any other team in the league. The game will be aired on ESPN, starting at 12 p.m.
The day will continue with a rematch of last season’s Christmas Day game between the Houston Rockets and the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Thunder took last year’s matchup in a 112-107 game that lived up to expectations and then some. This season, however, will feature forward Carmelo Anthony playing for the Rockets instead of the Thunder where he spent one year during the 2017-18 season. ABC’s coverage of the game will begin at 3 p.m. ET.
The Philadelphia Sixers will visit the Boston Celtics in a game that features two teams who faced each other in the Eastern Conference semifinals where the Celtics took the series in five games. The game can be seen on ABC at 5:30 p.m. ET.
The league will once again feature LeBron James facing the Golden State Warriors on Christmas. James, now of the Los Angeles Lakers will travel to the Bay Area and meet the Warriors in an evening game that will be aired both on ESPN’s and ABC’s networks. Coverage of the game will start at 8 p.m. ET.
The Christmas day coverage will end with the Portland Trailblazers visiting Donovan Mitchell and the Utah Jazz. The late game will begin at 10:30 p.m. ET. This game will be the Jazz’s first scheduled game on Christmas since the 1997-98 NBA season.
The League also announced the opening week schedule and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day slate of games.
