The NBA schedule release arrived on August 11 with a five-game Christmas Day slate, and the centerpiece is a meeting that will pull the league’s holiday spotlight straight to Madison Square Garden. The Knicks will host the Spurs on December 25 in a rematch of the 2026 NBA Finals participants.
That is the part people will look for first because Christmas Day is the NBA’s annual showcase, and the Knicks have turned the date into a habit. This will be their 59th Christmas game and their 51st at home on December 25, with Jalen Brunson again carrying the memory of last season’s 126-124 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers, when he scored 34 points and helped New York close another holiday game on the final possessions.
The matchup also carries its own recent history. The Knicks and Spurs met on Christmas in 2024, when New York won 117-114 and Victor Wembanyama produced 42 points, 18 rebounds, four assists and four blocks. The rematch lands on the same holiday stage after a season in which the Spurs beat Oklahoma City 117-102 on Christmas, with De’Aaron Fox scoring 29 points and Wembanyama adding 19 points and 11 rebounds.
What the schedule confirms is not just one game but a league-wide effort to stack the day with familiar draws and star power. LeBron James is headed back to L.A. to face his former team, playing on Christmas for a 21st time if he takes the floor and extending a run that has reached 19 consecutive seasons. He already has 525 points, 187 field goals, 30 steals, 142 assists and 32 three-pointers in Christmas games, along with 11 victories, and he can pass Oscar Robertson’s 145 assists for the holiday lead while remaining tied for first in steals.
Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Heat are also back on the Christmas schedule for the first time since 2023, with Antetokounmpo set for his first December 25 game with Miami. The Heat carry a 12-2 Christmas record, the best winning percentage at.857, and Erik Spoelstra has never lost on the holiday, going 9-0. Boston’s Christmas game will be its 39th, third-most all-time, and Philadelphia’s matchup with LeBron James, Joel Embiid, Jaylen Brown, Tyrese Maxey, Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves is built to feel like one of those old Sixers-Lakers nights from the 1980s.
The only thing the schedule does not settle is which game beyond Knicks-Spurs will command the most attention. That answer will wait until December 25, but the release already makes the hierarchy clear: the league wants New York at the center, wants its biggest names on the same day, and wants the holidays to belong to the stars who have already turned them into annual theater.
