Merry Christmas! Here are several memorable and noteworthy Christmas day games in NBA history. Many of the videos for these exist on YT.

1949: There were seven (yes, 7) NBA games on Christmas day during the league’s very first season. The NBA had 17 teams that year, so 82% of them were playing that day. The most interesting game was a bizarre comeback victory by the Waterloo Hawks who were down 84-72 with only 58 seconds remaining in regulation by abusing a rule at that time about jump balls after fouling, before winning 97-93 in OT.

The first Xmas day games for the two leagues that merged to form the NBA happened in 1938 for the NBL and in 1947 for the BAA.

1979: The Bullets were the East’s best team in the late-70s and the Sixers were the East’s best team in the early-80s, so this game was a perfect “changing of the guard” moment as Philly won a tight one 95-92.

1984: Bernard King exploded for a 60-point outburst against the Nets, the biggest scoring day in Xmas history.

1985: Rookie Patrick Ewing had his coming out party with 32 points and 11 rebounds to lead the Knicks back from a 25-point deficit to beat the heavily favored Celtics in double-OT.

1986: Patrick Ewing hit an amazing buzzer beater against the Bulls to give the Knicks an 86-85 win.

1994: Scottie Pippen made a buzzer-beating block of Charles Smith’s 3-point attempt to secure the Chicago victory over NY in OT. Pippen actually made two game-saving blocks in the final 3 seconds of OT to ensure the win.

1995: Penny Hardaway nailed a game-winning driving jumper that hit the rim and backboard 5 times before dropping with 3.1 seconds left to beat the defending champion Rockets 92-90.

2004: The first Shaq vs. Kobe match-up after their tumultuous “break-up” happened on Christmas day in 2004. Shaq and the Heat won by 2 in OT after Kobe missed a shot at the buzzer.

2011: This was the first day of the 2011-12 season after a prolonged lockout (the season was only 66 games long). The big game that Christmas was reigning MVP Derrick Rose and the Bulls facing off against Kobe and the Lakers. These clubs were two of the top contenders entering the season, and the game was a nail-biter. In the end, Luol Deng intercepted a Kobe pass with less than 20 seconds to go, leading to a magnificent Rose floater in the final seconds to earn the 88-87 win.

I’ll add there was a Finals rematch of Dallas and Miami, with the Heat having to watch the Mavericks raise their championship banner (talk about coal in your stocking). The game wasn’t great as Miami topped Dallas fairly easily on the way to winning LeBron’s first title.

2013: The upstart Warriors with burgeoning superstar Steph Curry hosted the Lob City Clippers and Point God Chris Paul in an extremely entertaining yet heated game that “featured” multiple technicals, scuffles, and ejections, plus a post-game shoving match. GS won 105-103.

2016: Huge match-up between the Cavs and Warriors who had that insane Finals just 6 months prior (Cleveland beat the 73-9 Dubs after going down 3-1 in the series), plus Durant was now with GS so hype for this game was ginormous. The contest lived up to its billing and was close throughout. Kyrie Irving made multiple clutch plays down the stretch, including a tough basket with 3.4 seconds left to win it 109-108 for the Cavs.