Merry Christmas, Enjoyers! We’re one day late, but we’re sure you enjoyed yesterday to the fullest—complete with presents, hoops, and holiday spirit. 🎄

Today’s Lineup

🎉 Happy birthday to Aleksej Pokuševski and Tim Legler! 🎉

Christmas Day Slate

Spurs beat OKC for third time in two weeks, Fox + Castle lead the way in 117-102 win over Thunder

All of a sudden, the second-place San Antonio Spurs are only 2.5 games behind the 26-5 Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Western Conference doesn’t feel like that much of a foregone conclusion anymore.

OKC had a lead in the first quarter, with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (22 PTS, 6 REB, 4 AST) leading the way per usual, but the Spurs never relinquished the lead after a Dylan Harper step-back put them up 37-36 with a minute to go in the period. Harper (12 PTS, 5-8 FG) had an efficient game on the offensive side of the ball, but you can’t give enough praise to De’Aaron Fox’s performance (29 PTS, 12-19 FG) opposite the Thunder’s tenacious defensive backcourt.

The Spurs maintained their lead after the break and didn’t look back, with Wemby (19 PTS, 11 REB) and Stephon Castle (19 PTS, 7 AST) helping to solidify it in the final period. After their historic start during which they lost just one game over the first 50 days of the season, the Thunder have now dropped three of their last five. Someone’s got a San Antonio problem!

Knicks mount 17-point fourth-quarter comeback to beat Cavs 126-124

With a little Christmas magic of his own, Jalen Brunson (34 PTS, 4 AST) and the Knicks took down Cleveland in dramatic fashion after completing a 17-point comeback in the final period.

In fact, the Knicks had already erased a huge lead earlier in the game—a 15-point margin in the second quarter after Cleveland had opened the game on a 20-5 run. The Cavs reopened their lead in the third with Darius Garland (20 PTS, 10 AST) at the helm, but that only lasted as long as Tyler Kolek and the Knicks wanted it to.

Brunson, Kolek (16 PTS, 9 AST), and Jordan Clarkson (25 PTS) threw New York back into the game late, with a Brunson three-pointer tying the game at 113 with just under four to play. After that, the Knicks forced just as many Donovan Mitchell (34 PTS, 7 REB, 6 AST) misses as they needed to seal the game and win the first of what would soon become a highlight-filled slate of Christmas Day games.

Merry Knicksmas to all who celebrate!

Elsewhere around the NBA:

• Despite a late surge that cut the Warriors’ lead to five late in the fourth, Golden State took down Cooper Flagg (27 PTS, 6 REB, 5 AST) and the Mavericks 126-116 after leading virtually wire to wire in Steph Curry’s 12th career Christmas game. Despite a less-than-efficient shooting night (23 PTS, 6-18 FG, 2-10 3PT), the Chef still hit some big shots in the fourth quarter to shove off his usual holiday mediocrity (at least a little) and help the Dubs seal the win.

• Kevin Durant (25 PTS, 8 AST) and Amen Thompson (26 PTS, 7 REB, 5 AST) led the Rockets to a 119-96 win over the Lakers last night, with KD getting the best of LeBron (18 PTS, 5 AST) in the two NBA legends’ fifth all-time Christmas matchup. Luka Doncic led the Lakers in scoring with 25 points, but L.A.’s defense couldn’t do anything against the Rockets, who also saw great stuff from Jabari Smith (16 PTS, 7 REB. 6-9 FG) and Tari Eason (13 PTS, 4 STL) on both ends.

Alternate Hoops History

You know we Enjoy Basketball (obviously). But that doesn’t mean that, as fans of our favorite teams, we don’t sometimes wish certain transactions had never happened.

Enter our main man Kenny, who posed this question on social media earlier this week:

By far the most common response, Mavericks fans came out of the woodwork to ask for Luka Doncic back. And with the season he’s having, fans on the internet like @MavsMuse definitely aren’t the only ones who would have loved to see Luka as a Mavs lifer.

Lakers fans and Russ fans came together to express their discontent about the Russ → LA experiment—the superstar pairing with LeBron and Anthony Davis at the time didn’t exactly live up to the hype, and Westbrook was only a Laker for about 18 months.

Golden State fans, have you missed Jordan Poole at all over the past few years? What about Ryan Rollins after his recent breakout in Milwaukee? That’s a lot for 58 games of Chris Paul as a Warrior—not to mention the draft capital.

Some, including this user, went avant-garde with it: reversing the reversal of a trade. Is this allowed? We’ll run it by Kenny. Or maybe by the genie?

Finally, there was a bevy of Clippers fans wishing that the reigning MVP was still on their team—remember the mega-trade that sent SGA to OKC? With Paul George already having moved on from L.A., this one especially stings.

The responses didn’t stop there—Kevin Durant → Phoenix, the Pacers trading Kawhi Leonard on draft night, the breakup of the KD-Russ-Harden Thunder, and Sacramento and Indiana’s Haliburton/Sabonis swap were a few of the popular answers among the thousands of replies.

Three in the Key

Signing Off

As the holiday season winds down and the calendar hurtles towards 2026, take this weekend to think back on this year and everything you were able to accomplish. Just a little bit of dedicated reflection time will surprise you!

Austin Zeglis