Chapter 1: What games are featured in the NBA Christmas Day preview?
Ho, ho, ho, and Merry Christmas to all of our NBA Daily listeners. I'm your guest host, Andrew Schleck, today. We're going to preview the NBA games on Christmas Day along for this sleigh ride with me. That's probably too much. Dave DeFore.
Hey. Hey.
Merry Christmas.
Santa's little helper. Happy holidays.
Happy holidays. Very important because there's a lot of holidays right now.
Absolutely.
Happy holidays, everybody.
It's true. We are previewing the Christmas Day games here. To help us, thanks to the NBA, they sent us this red box, which if you're watching on YouTube, I recommend you watch this on YouTube. You can listen to it We'll do our best to tell you everything that's going on here. But this is very much a YouTube-y show. So be sure to tune in on our YouTube channel.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel as well. We are going to use this box. I don't even quite know what's in it. And so I teased this on social. I'm very curious to open this box to see what's going on here because it's going to help us preview the slate of NBA games here. So... I'm going to open this up. I'm excited. Shout out to the NBA. And see what's in here. Thank you, NBA. Oh, okay.
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Chapter 2: What unique items are unboxed to symbolize the Christmas Day games?
I don't think so.
What do you mean?
Oh, it's fine. Okay. That's a nice hat.
You weren't excited about it.
I'm not going to lie. The Knicks hat looks the best if you're watching on YouTube.
That's 100 percent. Yeah. The Cavs hat doesn't look too good. Similar to the team. OK. All right. So what I have in here, I believe, are ornaments. OK, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to open these ornaments and then we will discuss what these ornaments mean. OK, so it's going to give us a hint toward a Christmas Day game. So the very first ornament I'm opening. Let's see.
Oh, can you see this? Is that a Grinch? No, it's not a Grinch. Let me see it not shiny on here.
Oh, it's an alien in a spaceship.
It's a little alien in that. Who are we previewing for the little alien? Of course, Victor Wembanyama. Victor Wembanyama against the Oklahoma City Thunder at 2.30 Eastern time here in OKC. I will be there. So... If you're there, we'd love to see you. I would love to wish you a Merry Christmas in person. What are we looking for, guys, in this Thunder Spurs matchup?
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Chapter 3: How do past Christmas Day performances influence current expectations?
which is kind of shaping up to be a little bit more interesting. If you look back like three weeks ago, you'd have been like, oh boy, this is going to be kind of a mess. But both teams are getting to better places with their teams. Well, I say that the Warriors are in a weird place, but they're still playing a little bit better. Warriors, Mavs, S, what you got for this matchup?
Man, will Draymond Green and Steve Kerr yell at each other on Christmas like the dysfunctional family that they are? I can't wait to see that. That will be interesting. I think ultimately to the matchup part of this, very intrigued to see what Cooper Flagg does on his first Christmas game. He, as we've talked about over the last couple of weeks, has really started to figure it out.
They're playing him next to Anthony Davis more, and that has opened up a lot of space for him, as well as the fact that just playing more guards has allowed Flagg to really blossom off of the ball more often. I mean, this is a guy who dropped 40 when we were watching it against the Jazz in Vegas.
um he looks very comfortable getting into his mid-range spots now and i think against the warriors defense that's the challenge right how draymond green is going to go at cooper flag because i think that'll be a pretty good challenge for him
What's the rookie record for points on Christmas Day? I feel like that's in play for Cooper Flag. One of the recurring themes so far this season for Cooper Flag is it's a lot of stuff that hadn't been done either before or since LeBron.
It's actually a pretty easy guess, Dave, if you want to make it. Is it LeBron? No. It's the other guy that's at the top of every single list. Wilt Chamberlain. Oh, Wilt. Okay.
I mean, you're going to make me go through a list.
How many points is it? Wilt Chamberlain scored 45 as a rookie and had 36 rebounds.
Cooper Flagg, 46 points, Christmas Day.
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Chapter 4: What should fans look forward to in the Thunder vs. Spurs matchup?
But I'm not in on the Mavericks as like this, this sort of a threat to win a lot of basketball games, but I'm in on them as like a construction project. Very interesting to watch.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm starting to see the vision. Okay. Next one. Ooh, this actually is still, we can talk about this side of it. I think. No. You see this?
Oh, it's a king crown, right?
Nope. It's not. Let me see if I can get closer. It's cologne? See what it says on it?
I don't see what it says on it.
How about now? Nope. Can't see. It says chef on it. It's a chef's hat. Ah, I see. Okay. So we can talk, let's talk the warrior side of that. Okay. Chef Curry. Oh, they sent two ornaments for each game? You know what? I think we really just talked Mavs. Let's talk about the Warriors. Like I said, they're in an interesting spot right now.
Steph Curry's over-importance is bad for this team. And long-term, I just don't know how Steph Curry even makes it to the playoffs or play-in, if we're looking right now. Healthy. I mean, if he's not putting up 40 a game, they have a hard time winning.
Yeah, I think one of the things with the Warriors, they have not been able to get to that defensive identity that they had at the second half of last year. which was they were the best defensive league to finish the year. And how do you get that magic again of all being on the same page defensively? Again, I think a lot of that has to do with Draymond, him being at 100%.
To your point about over-reliance, Dave, I think they probably have a level of over-reliance on Draymond defensively too.
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Chapter 5: How are the Mavericks and Warriors shaping up for Christmas Day?
We know the offense from him, but he's actually improved and stepped up defensively in ways that I didn't expect him to here in the last few weeks.
Well, he looks healthier, right? He does, yeah. I think above all else, he just looks healthier. I keep remembering the times Team Canada during the Olympics, and he looked like a shell of himself. And so you wondered whether he would be able to ā keep going as a premier player in the league. But I think he's an all-star this year. I think he's probably going to get that nod.
First-time all-star, Jamal Murray. First-time all-star, Jamal Murray. Well, we said he had to do it, S. Absolutely. Yeah, he was going to be the guy to take them to that next level this season. And I think he's done that. This is also... The number one offense in the league going up against the Timberwolves that I think is a very, very good defense.
So if you want stylistically a cool matchup, it's the fact that the Timberwolves have the perimeter defenders. They obviously have Rudy Gobert in the back line. And then you have Jokic trying to dissect that all game. I think that's a perfect matchup to watch at the end of the night.
And here's the thing about this. If it gets close, if we get a close matchup, we know what Jokic is last five minutes of a game. But Anthony Edwards, we got to start talking about what he does in the games. The way he goes out the thunder with that block, step back three and steal sequence to finish them off. I mean, he does and he's not scared of it.
So hopefully we get a close game with a finish. No fouling up three guys.
Please don't.
Can we get an ant ornament?
There's got to be.
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Chapter 6: What are the key storylines for the Knicks vs. Cavaliers game?
Oh, yeah. Steph Curry on Christmas Day. Only a year ago. Yeah, that's Cam Reddish right there. That's Cam Reddish. That's Dalton Connect. Trying to guard Steph Curry. Listen.
That's how it'll feel for the Rockets and Lakers game, by the way. Them trying to guard Reed Shepard will be similar to that.
Okay. Wow. I mean, honestly, this could be the Mavericks trying to guard Steph though. This could be the Mavericks trying to, I mean, because he had, you remember how many threes he had? This actually tighter record for the most threes made on Christmas day. You guys know? No. I'm going to say 11. 11 is too many. Eight.
Okay.
He had eight threes on Christmas Day, which is a record for the most three-pointers made. He had 38 points against the Lakers.
He's going to break that. He's going to break that record on Christmas.
He's going to need to.
He's going to need to break it. This is gearing up to be an all-time Christmas. I'll tell you that.
Well, you know what, S? It's an all-time season. For whatever reason, it's been an all-time season for offense, so I expect Christmas Day to be an offensive explosion. Yeah, fair enough.
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