The Celtics are still viewed as one of the marquee draws in the NBA, even despite moving on from Jaylen Brown.
While the official NBA schedule comes out on Thursday, the Boston Celtics learned one piece of their schedule on Tuesday morning.
As noted by Shams Charania of ESPN, the Celtics are, once again, part of the NBA Christmas Day programming.
The Celtics will host the Miami Heat (2:30 p.m. ET) on the holiday, with four other games happening as well. The San Antonio Spurs will take on the New York Knicks while the Philadelphia 76ers visit the Los Angeles Lakers, the Oklahoma City Thunder take on the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Denver Nuggets take on the Golden State Warriors.
Here's more of what you need to know about matchups.
Storylines clearly matter
At the end of the day, the NBA is a league focused on entertainment, and creating good storylines and emotional drama is part of that.
In these matchups, the league office clearly went for some juicy narratives, including the Spurs returning to take on the Knicks in an NBA Finals rematch - and a possible NBA Finals preview again.
Furthermore, the 76ers are traveling to the Lakers as LeBron James returns back to the place where he won a title in 2019-20, and the Celtics get the Heat just months after missing out on a trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo, who ended up in Miami.
Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo (13) drives to the basket against Boston Celtics center Neemias Queta (88) during the first quarter at Kaseya Center. Sam Navarro-Imagn ImagesWhat do we think about the matchup?
I think it's pretty clear that while good, this is not the premiere matchup on the league schedule for this day. This matchup would have been made even juicier if it had featured the Celtics and the 76ers, pitting Jayson Tatum against Jaylen Brown.
But the league clearly felt that LeBron against his old team was the better play, in addition to a Finals rematch.
Also to note for Christmas Day
The NBA and NFL are now in an arms race over who can dominate the holiday. While the NBA has five games to watch, the NFL will have three solid showdowns as well.
The Buffalo Bills will play the Denver Broncos while the Seattle Seahawks host the Los Angeles Rams and the Chicago Bears play the Green Bay Packers.
Elsewhere for the Celtics
Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce will be together again on Saturday night, serving as the introducers for Doc Rivers on his big night. The Hall of Fame induction can be seen on Saturday at 7 p.m. ET on NBA TV. Each day leading up to the induction, we're chronicling Rivers' time with the Celtics. You can see about his first two years here.
