Ohm YoungmisukDec 23, 2025, 07:00 AM ETCloseOhm Youngmisuk has covered the Giants, Jets and the NFL since 2006. Prior to that, he covered the Nets, Knicks and the NBA for nearly a decade. He joined ESPNNewYork.com after working at the New York Daily News for almost 12 years and is a graduate of Michigan State University. Follow him on Twitter »Follow on X
play1:21Flashback: Steve Kerr slaps ball to Knicks’ Hubert Davis for tying 3On Dec. 25, 1994, Bulls guard Steve Kerr tapped a long inbounds pass away, but it went to Knicks guard Hubert Davis for a tying triple.
play2:47Luka Doncic: My first focus is a championship, not MVP awardDave McMenamin sits down with Lakers star Luka Doncic to discuss his NBA goals and personal life.
Wemby believes he’s the best player in the NBA (0:45)Victor Wembanyama says Nikola Jokic is the best offensive player in the NBA, but Wemby believes he’s the best overall player in the league. (0:45)
Flashback: Steve Kerr slaps ball to Knicks’ Hubert Davis for tying 3On Dec. 25, 1994, Bulls guard Steve Kerr tapped a long inbounds pass away, but it went to Knicks guard Hubert Davis for a tying triple.
On Dec. 25, 1994, Bulls guard Steve Kerr tapped a long inbounds pass away, but it went to Knicks guard Hubert Davis for a tying triple.
Luka Doncic: My first focus is a championship, not MVP awardDave McMenamin sits down with Lakers star Luka Doncic to discuss his NBA goals and personal life.
He also thought it was possible that the time Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson’s Lakers came out in retro short shorts against Rivers’ Celtics could’ve happened on Christmas. (It was on Dec. 30, 2007, close enough to blend into Christmas). The Celtics and Lakers did play each other on the holiday in 2008.
“I’ve had a lot of Christmas games,” Rivers explained to ESPN. “It’s different. I love it and hate it at the same time because having time with your family, it’s so important.
That is why the Golden State Warriors — who will be playing for a 13th consecutive time on Christmas against the Dallas Mavericks — will have family members fly to join them on the road trip. While LeBron and Bronny James have the opportunity to play together on Christmas again, the Lakers’ father-son duo still has to schedule the James family’s festivities around their matchup.
The NBA tries to make working on the holiday feel as celebratory as possible by giving the coaches and players a present, like a nice leather wallet, a bag or an electronic gift.
“You wake up in Room 736 and you forget that it’s Christmas,” Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr told ESPN of what it’s like to play a road game on Christmas. “And you look at your text from Eric Hausen [Warriors vice president of team operations] saying, ‘Merry Christmas.’ And you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s Christmas.’ You go down for your meeting in the third-floor ballroom, and everybody says ‘Merry Christmas’ and you do the scouting report and it’s just bizarre.
Players and coaches who have games on Christmas agree with Kerr and Rivers that it’s an honor. But playing on the holiday, especially on the road, can also leave some feeling like the Grinch.
BRONNY JAMES, 21, doesn’t remember a time when he didn’t watch his father play on Christmas. Like Bronny, an entire generation has grown up watching LeBron James play a record 19 times on Dec. 25 since his 2003 debut season, including the past 18 Christmas Days.
Last Christmas was historic: The father-son duo became the first to be teammates for a game on the holiday. While Bronny did not play, he watched Dad outshine Stephen Curry at Golden State with 31 points, 10 assists, 4 rebounds, 2 steals and 1 block.
No matter what day the James family celebrates Christmas every year, Zhuri, the youngest daughter, always gets the festivities started.
“Zhuri will be up at 6 in the morning and already downstairs waiting for us,” Bronny said. “We’ll come down like an hour later, and she’ll be mad that we’re so late. Just sitting there staring at the presents.”
LeBron has the most points (507), second-most assists (137) and fifth-most rebounds (143) on Christmas Day, but it has come at the price of having to fit the family’s Christmas celebration around the games.
“I never really was bummed out [too much],” Bronny said. “I mean, I was, kind of, but I knew why. So it wasn’t really a problem for me, and we always found a way to celebrate it somehow when he was back. But of course, every family wants to be together on Christmas. It was difficult sometimes. Especially for my mom [Savannah], just having to plan something else.
“… My siblings and my mom are always together on Christmas. But just having to plan something else to where we can all be together at the same time. It’s just something extra that a lot of people don’t got to deal with that. So it was definitely a little stressful on the whole family, but we made it happen.”
Whenever LeBron, 40, decides to retire and end his Christmas streak, perhaps Bronny will have to go through what his father has had to do almost every Christmas of his playing career.
OVER THREE DECADES later, one of the best finishes to a New York Knicks-Chicago Bulls game is still a Christmas nightmare for Kerr.
With 3.3 seconds left on the clock and the Bulls clinging to a 100-97 lead in Chicago on Dec. 25, 1994, Anthony Mason sent his full-court inbounds heave sailing straight to Kerr, who was to the right of the basket. The then-Bulls shooter jumped to catch the basketball but was worried he was going to fall and be called for a travel.
“I threw it right to [Knicks guard] Hubert Davis,” Kerr told ESPN, still disgusted with himself all these decades later. “And he made a 3 to send it to overtime. It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. It was a huge gaffe. It was just dumb.
Flashback: Steve Kerr slaps ball to Knicks’ Hubert Davis for tying 3
Fortunately for Kerr, Scottie Pippen saved him with one of the best Christmas performances. Pippen scored all seven of Chicago’s points in overtime and had two game-clinching blocks at the end to hold off the Knicks 107-104. Pippen, who had 36 points, 16 rebounds and five steals while playing all 53 minutes, hugged an almost apologetic Kerr after the game.
Michael Jordan, who would come out of retirement later that season, might not have been as forgiving.
“I would’ve been the goat,” said Kerr, who played in five Christmas games. “Not the good GOAT. The bad goat. It worked out, but it was humiliating. It was just the dumbest play. I still don’t quite know why I did it.
“The problem is now every Christmas Day when they start playing [vintage] games on NBA TV, they still show that. I’m like, f—, would you guys leave me alone?”
“It’s a blessing because you understand being one of the 10 teams that play means you’re marketable,” Curry told ESPN. “The experience of playing in the game is fun. … Before the in-season tournament, that was the NBA’s biggest moment before the turn of the calendar year. Definitely felt like a different energy around it.”
This Christmas will mark the Warriors’ 13th consecutive year playing on the holiday, with Curry playing in all but two of them. But until recently, Curry couldn’t find his shot on Christmas. In his first eight Christmas games, Curry shot a combined 35-for-116 (29.3%), including just 10-for-49 (20.4%) from 3. His first two Christmas outings saw him miss 23 of 27 shots.
One of Draymond Green’s favorite Christmas memories came during his indefinite suspension for striking Jusuf Nurkic in 2023. Green was frustrated, contemplated retirement and had to rediscover his drive for basketball.
“That was great. It was actually f—ing amazing,” Green told ESPN. “Usually it’s weird because Christmas Day is not like what you remember as a kid, where you spend with your family. We’ve been on the road [five times, once when Green was suspended]. I know my 5-year-old’s first Christmas, I was gone.”
“As an NBA player, you want to be on that stage — marquee games and everybody’s watching,” Green said. “But as a human, it f—ing sucks, if I’m honest.
Luka Doncic: My first focus is a championship, not MVP award
Dave McMenamin sits down with Lakers star Luka Doncic to discuss his NBA goals and personal life.
WAKING UP EARLY for a noon tipoff on a regular-season weekend game can be the worst for many NBA players. For Josh Hart, the Knicks’ traditional early start is the perfect time to play on Christmas, especially now that he has two boys who are two-and-a-half.
This will be Hart’s seventh Christmas game. He’s played in the holiday game as a Laker, Pelican and now Knickerbocker.
His most memorable Christmas game was with the Lakers when they knocked off the Warriors 127-101 in 2018. It was James’ first Christmas game with L.A., but the star sustained a groin injury in the win. Rajon Rondo stepped in with 15 points, 10 assists and 5 rebounds off the bench.
“We beat that Warriors team with Steph, Klay [Thompson], [Kevin Durant], Draymond,” Hart said. “LeBron got hurt. Rondo turned into Playoff Rondo and kind of led us to that win. He unfortunately broke his [finger]. I gave him an ’09 bottle of Harlan [Estate wine] that he opened on the plane. That kind of really got me into wine.”
He scored 33 points and outdueled Jalen Brunson, who had 27 points, in the Utah Jazz’s 120-116 Christmas win over the Mavericks in 2021.
This Christmas, they will go at it again when Mitchell’s Cleveland Cavaliers visit Brunson’s New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
“Man, I love playing on Christmas,” Mitchell told ESPN, barely able to contain his enthusiasm. “It means you are doing something right as a team, right?
“I remember being at my grandmother’s, getting up at 12 and being up until 12, watching basketball all day. So to be a part of that is truly special.”
Mitchell’s routine during his first two Christmas Day games with the Jazz was to keep everything as normal as possible. He prepared like it was a typical game day, and that meant celebrating Christmas either the day before or the day after, which he said is his mother’s birthday.