The NBA season is still about 10 weeks away, but its never too early to start planning ahead for marquee matchups. The regular season is expected to tip off on October 22, and even though we don’t have full schedules yet, the NBA is already lining up a holiday feast!
As reported by The Athletic’s Shams Charania, here are the NBA Christmas Day matchups:
DraftKings Sportsbook is already getting ready in the holiday spirit, as well, and lines for these five matchups dropped Thursday night. While tons of details are still to be decided in the 138 days until Christmas, here are a couple of the bets that jump out to me as top options on this slate.
Boston Celtics -4 vs. Philadelphia 76ers (-110)
The defending champs get to be at home in the middle game of the five-game extravaganza, and they’re a strong early option against the Sixers. At this point in the season, who knows if Joel Embiid will play or not, but even if he does, it’s easy to like the Celtics at home.
Last season, Boston went 64-18 in the regular season to get the top seed in the Eastern Conference and were an even more impressive 37-4 at TD Garden. They faced the Sixers four times last season, losing their first matchup on the road in Philly, but then winning by 10, 6 and 18 points in their other three contests, respectively.
The Celtics played in this same time slot last Christmas and beat the Lakers by 11 in Los Angeles. Philly lost their Christmas Day matchup to the Heat by six.
While the Team USA drama may have faded significantly in four months, there’s a strong chance that Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum go “scorched Earth” after their Olympic snubs. While the Celtics are basically running it back with the same squad, they’ll be facing a Sixers team that may not have fully gelled. In a spotlight matchup on Christmas Day at home, this looks like a place for them to pick up a big statement win, so I’m comfortable giving the points.
Denver Nuggets (-105) at Phoenix Suns
The Nuggets and Suns are both in action for the third straight Christmas. In 2022, the Nuggets beat the Suns by three points in overtime thanks to a massive 41-point performance from Nikola Jokic.
Last year, the Nuggets beat the Warriors by six on Christmas, while the Suns lost by 14 to the Mavericks. The Nuggets went on to finish eight games ahead of the Suns in the Western Conference and had a more successful playoff run.
This offseason the Nuggets lost Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and brought in Russell Westbrook and Dario Saric. The Suns lost Eric Gordon but added Tyus Jones and Monte Morris.
The stars for both teams remain mostly the same, which means this will likely come down to which team is healthier at this point of the season. With the Suns stars dealing with so many injuries in 2023-24, it’s hard to see them staying healthy for all of 2024-25, so my guess is that Joker, Jamal Murray and the Nuggets will be more in shape and ready to roll for this contest. Denver is a proven as agreat regular season team, which is why I’ll take them to win straight up in this matchup, where they open as one-point underdogs.
All odds provided by DraftKings Sportsbook and all odds subject to change.
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