Christmas Day is usually the biggest day of the NBA regular season aside from opening night, with the NBA usually scheduling the games with the most appeal (off and on the court) for that day. Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN just confirmed on Twitter that one of those matchups will involve the Los Angeles Lakers against the Los Angeles Clippers in the Battle for LA.
The full regular season schedule hasn’t been released or reported, but this may in fact be the first matchup of the year between the two teams. The Lakers share a division with the Clippers so they play them more than other teams in the Western Conference, but last year the Lakers also played their Christmas Day game against a fellow division rival in the Golden State Warriors. The Lakers didn’t play them until that matchup, with the rest of their three contests following that.
It wouldn’t be surprising to see the NBA hold off on all Lakers-Clippers matchups until Christmas Day to build even more hype, and boy, will that hype be huge. LeBron James and Anthony Davis will square off against Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, in a battle between arguably the two best duos in the entire NBA. Those matchups are enough to bring in viewers, but the heightened intensity due to the L.A. rivalry will add to it, as will the fact that the Lakers and Clippers are both projected to compete for the championship this year.
In addition to the Lakers-Clippers game, Wojnarowski also confirmed other Christmas Day games such as Pelicans-Nuggets and Celtics-Raptors, while Malika Andrews/ESPN confirmed Bucks-76ers and Tim McMahon/ESPN confirmed Rockets-Warriors.
Stay tuned for more schedule updates including the opening game for the Lakers, as the NBA Schedule is set to release soon, with more reports like this sure to come.
