The Boston Celtics, generally a mainstay of the NBA Christmas Day schedule in recent years, have been unceremoniously given the boot for the 2025-26 season.
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Sources have informed ESPN’s Shams Charania of the anticipated holiday slate, and Boston is nowhere to be found.
🚨🎄 NBA Christmas Day 2025 on ABC and ESPN, per sources:
– Cleveland Cavaliers at New York Knicks
– San Antonio Spurs at Oklahoma City Thunder
– Houston Rockets at LA Lakers
– Dallas Mavericks at Golden State Warriors
– Minnesota Timberwolves at Denver Nuggets
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) August 8, 2025
Boston, of course, will be without six-time All-Star power forward Jayson Tatum on Christmas Day. While the 6-foot-8 Duke product hasn’t entirely been ruled out for the 2025-26 season as he recuperates from an Achilles tendon rupture, that’s certainly still a possibility.
Knowing this, team president and general manager Brad Stevens offered to save money this summer rather than retool and hope Tatum could be up to speed in time for the 2026 playoffs. Stevens ditched two of the team’s top six players, trading six-time All-Defensive Team guard Jrue Holiday and one-time All-Star center Kristaps Porzingis in separate deals.
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Forward Georges Niang, whom Stevens had acquired in the Porzingis deal from the Atlanta Hawks, was shipped to the Utah Jazz — along with two second-rond draft picks — for two-way signing RJ Luis Jr.
Stevens also may be without a third, as reserve big man Al Horford remains a free agent and appears to be eyeing the Golden State Warriors as his next stop. Stevens also let third-string center Luke Kornet sign a three-year, $41 million free agent deal with the San Antonio Spurs and waived deep-bench point guard JD Davison.
The net outcome of these deals is that the Celtics have dipped far below the league’s punitive second luxury tax apron, effectively a hard cap, and could still maneuver their way under its first tax apron this summer. But the priority for Stevens isn’t improving his personnel around stars Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Derrick White — it’s saving money for the team’s incoming new billionaire owner William Chisholm.
Stunningly, this marks the first time since 2015 that the Celtics haven’t made the cut on Christmas, a date typically used by the NBA to highlight its strongest teams and players in a given season.
The Celtics will not be featured in a Christmas Day game for the first time since 2015.
— Sports TV News & Updates (@TVSportsUpdates) August 8, 2025
This decision from the league front office can certainly be seen as a slight to Brown, White, and whomever else Stevens winds up retaining to fill out his roster around them this year.
Really, the schedule also reads a slight to the entire Eastern Conference, as only the New York Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers — the expected cream of the crop next year, essentially by default due to health issues impacting Boston and the Indiana Pacers — made the cut on Christmas.
For more news and notes on the Boston Celtics, visit Boston Celtics on SI.