This year marks the first time since 2008 that neither of the two most-watched Christmas Day NBA games featured LeBron James or Stephen Curry, potentially signaling a changing of the guard has finally occurred after 2 decades of eyeball draw dominance
The early games (Cavs-Knicks, Spurs-Thunder), also outpaced the two traditional featured Christmas Day windows of late afternoon and primetime, which featured James, Curry and Kevin Durant.
San Antonio’s win, which peaked with 7.4 million in the 4:15 PM ET quarter-hour, increased 51% from Timberwolves-Mavericks last year (4.45M).
Cavaliers-Knicks led-in with 6.37 million, up 27% from Spurs-Knicks last year (5.00M) and the most-watched Noon ET Christmas game on record.
Warriors’ comfortable win over Dallas ranked third for the day with 6.11 million, up 16% from Sixers-Celtics last year (5.24M).
The Lakers’ blowout loss to the Rockets followed with just 5.35 million, down 32% from last year’s head-to-head matchup of James and Curry, which faced no NFL competition and was decided in the final seconds (7.91M).
Nuggets-Timberwolves closed out the night with 3.61 million — down 7% from Nuggets-Suns last year (3.90M), but still the second-most watched Christmas game in that late night window.