Reports: Warriors-Cavaliers, Heat-Pelicans to face off on Christmas Day 2015
The full 2015-16 NBA schedule has yet to be released, but according to a pair of reports, the league’s calendar-makers have already penciled in a couple of matchups as part of the league’s annual Christmas Day showcase.
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Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reported Wednesday that “a tentative schedule that has been circulating around the league” includes the Miami Heat hosting the New Orleans Pelicans in the 12 p.m. ET kickoff of the 2015 Christmas marathon. ESPN.com’s Marc Stein followed that up on Thursday, reporting that “LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers are tentatively scheduled to visit Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors” in a rematch of the 2015 NBA Finals, which the Warriors won in six games, “as a headliner of its annual Christmas Day slate.”
Both Roberts and Stein offer the caveat that neither matchup is set in stone, as the NBA reserves the right to change anything in the tentative framework before the official announcement of the finalized schedule, which could come as soon as next week. But if these two pairings bear out, there are certainly worse places to start the 2015 Christmas Day schedule.
Maxed-out rising star Anthony Davis and newly minted head coach Alvin Gentry leading a Pelicans team with designs on taking the next step in their playoff development ought to be quite a stern test for a reloaded Heat squad that looks to have one of the best starting fives in the league — the re-upped backcourt of Dwyane Wade and Goran Dragic, steady swingman Luol Deng on the wing, emerging big man Hassan Whiteside in the middle and thankfully healthy star Chris Bosh back at the four spot — and aims to get back in the Eastern Conference playoff picture after missing out this spring for the first time since 2008.
And, of course, you don’t need a whole lot of hype to sell a rematch of this June’s Finals — especially if the likes of Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love and Anderson Varejao are healthy enough to give LeBron the level of help the Cavs couldn’t muster in battling Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala and company in the championship round. (Somewhere, we suspect the King’s muttering about having to head out on the road for the holidays again.)
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The NBA has trotted out five games on Christmas Day seven times in the last eight years, parking hoops lovers in front of their TVs from noon ET through well into the wee hours of Boxing Day. Last year’s slate saw the Washington Wizards dispatch the New York Knicks in the noon ET matinee; the Oklahoma City Thunder outlast the San Antonio Spurs at 2:30 p.m. ET; the Heat topple former teammate James and the Cavs at 5 p.m. ET; the Chicago Bulls wallop the Los Angeles Lakers at 8 p.m. ET; and the Los Angeles Clippers knock off the rival Warriors in the 10:30 p.m. ET nightcap.
It remains to be seen what else the NBA might have in store for this December 25. I tend to agree with SB Nation’s Tom Ziller that a post-DeAndre-fiasco meeting between the Clippers and Dallas Mavericks, preferably in Big D, would be an awfully nice way to welcome back casual fans invested at least as much in drama as in dunks or defense, but we’ll have to see if the schedule-makers can work out the logistics there.
Whatever else might come down the pike, the five-game slate’s sure to go heavy on recognizable names, young talents on the rise and storylines we can flog ’til the cows come home. LeBron, Steph, the Brow, Bosh and D-Wade seems like just the kind of present NBA fans wish for — and with how attractive this year’s wrapping paper’s expected to be, it’s going to be awful hard to heed the signs and keep our greedy mitts off.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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