Once you’re done opening presents on Friday morning, get comfortable in front of that new HDTV for an NBA quintuple-header. Here’s a quick preview of the Christmas Day games:
Game One: Miami at New York (12pm ET, ESPN)
The Knicks have actually been playing pretty decent defense of late… but they’ll be put to the test when Dwyane Wade arrives at Madison Square Garden.
Game Two: Boston at Orlando (2:30pm ET, ABC)
The Association’s network TV debut features the top two teams in the Eastern Conference, the Celtics (22-5) and Magic (21-7). Kevin Garnett, who missed Tuesday’s game with a thigh injury, should be available for the C’s.
Game Three: Cleveland at Los Angeles Lakers (5:00pm ET, ABC)
The other marquee Christmas matchup is a matchup of the teams everyone wanted to see in last year’s Finals. Prepare for an overdose of the Kobe and LeBron puppets during this one, courtesy of the good folks at Nike.
Game Four: Los Angeles Lakers at Phoenix (8:00pm ET, ESPN)
Like the Knicks, the Clippers don’t really merit inclusion in the year’s highest-profile slate of games — but any game involving Steve Nash is worth a look.
Game Five: Denver at Portland (10:30pm ET, ESPN)
It will be interesting to see if Portland can scrape together enough bodies to play this game — playing without Greg Oden, Nic Batum and Travis Outlaw, and they just lost Joel Przybilla to a severe knee injury and Brandon Roy is going in for tests on his shoulder.
Enjoy the games.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Christmas Day NBA originally appeared on About.com Basketball on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 13:17:36.
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