A Very Merry Guide to Christmas Day NBA Action

The NBA's gift to fans and people desperate for televised distraction this Christmas is a whopping five games, all of them at least a little bit appealing. Here, we preview each of those contests, and a sixth bonus matchup that might be the most important Christmas game of all.

Heat vs. Pelicans

Kicking off the slate of games honoring the birthday of Sol Invictus, the Roman Sun God, is a high-noon showdown between the flawed yet intriguing Miami Heat and the New Orleans Pelicans, who currently play a style of ball best described as Don't Worry It Happens to a Lot of Guys. It's interesting enough as a game, but becomes even more so when framed as America's premiere party towns pitted against one another, with jazzy and romantically haunted Francophile night-lifers drunkenly stepping into a raucous, cocaine-fueled underworld that worships at the altar of bottle service and the finest Spanglish EDM jams. For the same effect, watch Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans and then Spring Breakers, and then try to figure out which one made you hate yourself and/or substance abuse and/or America more.

Multiple injuries and difficulty of grasping the rhythms and tempo of Alvin Gentry's playbook have rapidly doomed these Pels to Western Conference perdition. On the bright side, the dozens of sleepy people watching this game at home can entertain themselves with droll trade scenarios—Eric Gordon for Birdman and Luol Deng, just imagine—and speculation on how long before Dwyane Wade follows Kobe with his own defiant swoon into the misery years.

The most intriguing thing to watch for: whether Norris Cole and Erik Spoelstra can partake in an emotive bear hug before Hassan Whiteside gallops in from the weak side and swats a demoralized Cole into the sidelines. Anyway, Merry Christmas! It's almost time for lunch! — Alex Siquig

HEAT 103, PELICANS 88

Bulls vs. Thunder

Derrick Rose lost the facemask and cut his hair, ditching the alarming Suicide Squad aesthetic that until recently served as a gross symbolic reminder of the dark and tragic Aronofsky movie that has become his career arc. Rose may look more like the Derrick Rose that was MVP in 2011, but he does not play like him, and these Chicago Bulls are different team.

Coach Fred Hoiberg is a droid constructed by his nefarious front office, who cackles darkly at the strange and mostly unwatchable basketball experiment they've created. Hoiberg will malfunction on this holiday, though, and the flying sparks of his mechanical breakdown will be the fireworks behind the beautiful, soaring play of Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant, who will score a combined 94 points with pick-and-rolls set so high that they'll make Steph Curry blush. That, at least, will be fun.

The Thunder will play like overextended reindeer, delivering toys all across the continents as the Christmas clock winds down, sneaking in maximal joy against the buzzer. Chicago center Pau Gasol will sit on the bench in idle awe, muttering, "This is opera," and request a waiver from his team right after the game. — John Wilmes

THUNDER 116, BULLS 91

Cavaliers vs. Warriors

On America's most sentimental day, rising phenom Riley Curry will yet again steal the thunder from her father, Steph, when she sits on Santa's lap during the pre-game television production. Famous for her adorable childlike bluntness, Riley will truly test the powers of a miniature body and a voice that sounds like helpless innocence when she fat-shames the old man. The atmosphere will be strained as she pokes Santa's paunch and laughs at its jiggles, but the room will chuckle along with her. There is no stopping her, there is no negotiating with her. We do not yet know how much power Riley Curry truly has.

The man in the Santa suit, as it happens, is a middling Warriors administrator who had looked forward to donning the Christmas red all season, in no small part because he anticipated being part of the memes that invariably come with the privilege of entering Riley's halo. Draymond Green will gleefully call this man "Fatass Santa" for the rest of winter, and the administrator's rapid descent down and out of the organization's hierarchy will stand as a mostly untold ballad of a man unfit for the emotional rigor of Golden State's ceaseless technocratic machine. It's a sad story in the short term, but he'll be better for getting out. The Warriors are not for everyone, and certainly not for the weak. — John Wilmes

WARRIORS 123, CAVALIERS 105

Spurs vs. Rockets

This is the game for churlish Yuletide grumps who want to see the Grinch burn Whoville down to the foundations. As a basketball game, it's your typical holiday battle of lawful evil versus chaotic evil. The Spurs are an odious slaughterhouse, but it's impossible not to admire their diabolical Rasputin moxie and best-in-class ergonomics. The Rockets, on the other hand, are about as fun to watch as a Lars Von Trier film starring the 15 people you hate most. Houston has slithered to a dispiriting and mediocre record even with what scientists would call a "soft-ass" schedule. This led to their coach's ritual sacrifice and much weeping and gnashing of teeth (Luke 13:28).

On the bright side, Houston has post-season bragging rights over their I-10 rivals, having never succumbed to the San Antonio Bubonic Plague in the postseason. Admittedly, that is scant comfort, but it is perhaps a thought to keep close when James Harden allows Kawhi Leonard to jog by him at a leisurely pace for an uncontested layup, or when Dwight Howard falls to his knees and swears fealty to Boban Marjanović, or when Ty Lawson sees that mean ghost who torments him and all the other various catastrophes that afflict these bewildered spreadsheet hucksters. The Spurs will come at them with their methodical cruelty and in so doing will teach us the true meaning of Christmas: the rich kids get the best presents and one day we will all die. — Alex Siquig

SPURS 90, ROCKETS 69

Clippers vs. Lakers

Truly, no Christmas is complete without two sad, angry people who live under the same roof engaging in an extended passive-aggressive slapfight. The Lakers, you're familiar with: Kobe Bryant has turned into a luxurious gold-plated broken clock; young players Julius Randle and D'Angelo Russell are fading in and out of the lineup for no discernible reason; everyone else is hamstrung by Byron Scott's VisiCalc-ass concept of offense. It is the nadir of the entire 70-plus year history of the franchise, sweetened only by a sentimental, brand-strengthening farewell and a faint flicker of hope for the future, once Kobe's angry ghost and Byron's gym-teacher ministrations leave the building.

The Clippers, on the other hand, are as good as they've ever been, and it is not even close to good enough. Golden State's unspeakable dominance casts a long shadow here; the Warriors are the efficient, mechanical wheat thresher mowing down enormous fields of wins, hedgerow to hedgerow, while the Clippers painstakingly craft their victories by hand. The Clippers' overhauled roster is slapdash, befuddling, tied together only by the sense that everyone seems like they should be more accomplished and successful than they are. A bitter chill is draped over Chris Paul as the end approaches: once the greatest of the do-everything guards, the POINT GOD, he is now marooned on the island of misfit veterans, his two bloodshot eyes fixed forward in horror as Steph Curry racks up three-pointers, international acclaim, and even more success as a noted developer of famous internet children.

The result is carved in stone: the Clippers will win, if not by a wide enough margin to appear dominant. There might be a frustration-fueled chippy incident, some shoving or glowering. There is friction when two different types of failures press against each other; their frustrations will fly into the crowd like dull gray sparks. No one is at risk of being burned. Disappointment and diffusion. The true spirit of Capital's Christmas brought to life, right there on the court. — Corbin Smith

CLIPPERS 107, LAKERS 92

Your Visceral Craving For Independence vs. Your Deep Need For Human Connection

Basketball is, fundamentally, about the individual's relationship to the collective. Do you pass or shoot? Will you box out, clearing space for someone else to snag a rebound, or will you rely on your own supernatural athleticism to just sky over that other dude and grab it yourself? Does your coach succumb to his control-freak neurosis and call every play, or does he instill a series of rules and trust his players to execute them? Every decision you can make on court can be affixed to a graph that measures "RUGGED INDIVIDUALISM" (Michael Jordan) on one axis and "THE BLESSED SPIRIT OF COMMUNITY" (Bill Russell) on the other.

You will, more likely than not, spend Christmas with your family, and, more likely than not, feel the tug of the individual self, that which screams from the main hall of your brain, "I AM A PERSON, MY OWN PERSON, NOT AN AFFIXED POST IN THE LIVES OF THESE PEOPLE!" This voice is arguing, entirely too loudly, against the pull of the more understated impulse that whispers, "That voice may have a point, but this is your family, and it is your duty to engage with them." As nearly all of Western Civilization will be embroiled in this conflict, in some form or another, I posit here that the yearly Christmas rituals we endure with our families will be the largest and most widely consumed Basketball-Style Contest of the day, maybe even the year.

I do not know what decision you will make, or how you will engage or not engage. I would also hate to judge. Maybe you have a righteous reason to make distance, or your family is actually "pretty cool" and getting your holiday chill on comes easy. What I do know, however, is that this internal struggle may become, in its way, your Statement Game for the year: a declaration of how much of your own momentary comfort you are willing to sacrifice in order to make the superstructure of human interaction function on one of its most intense days. Leave it all on the court. — Corbin Smith