On Dec. 25, 1947, a year after the NBA’s inception, the New York Knicks defeated the Providence Steamrollers at Madison Square Garden, 89–75, in the league’s first Christmas Day contest. Since then, the NBA has played games every year on Christmas (except in 1998, when a lockout pushed the start of the season until January).
For some, the Christmas Day slate signals the true start of the NBA season, as college football winds down its bowl season and the NFL regular season nears its end. Even with Christmas landing on Sunday this year, the NFL moved all but two of Week 16’s regular slate to Christmas Eve, letting the NBA rule the holiday it has marketed increasingly in the modern era.