Christmas and hoops

Once again, Christmas Day will be filled with family, fun and some of the best basketball teams and players in world, from morning to night. The hoops holiday fiesta begins at 9 a.m. with the Cleveland Cavaliers at the New York Knicks. The marquee matchup of the day follows, with the San Antonio Spurs taking on the Oklahoma City Thunder at 11:30 a.m., their second meeting in three days. The Golden State Warriors will host the Dallas Mavericks at 2 p.m., the Houston Rockets will be in Los Angeles to take on the Lakers at 5 p.m. and the Minnesota Timberwolves and Denver Nuggets wrap up the day with a 7:30 p.m. start in the Mile High City.

All games can be watched on ESPN or ABC.

You may be thinking I’m being overdramatic when I say the NBA is a big part of Christmas Day. That’s only a recent thing, right? Maybe the last 20, 25 years?

You’d be way off and as much as NFL is a staple on Thanksgiving Day and baseball is synonymous with apple pie, the NBA on Christmas have been partners for a long time. The first NBA on Christmas game occurred in 1947 — that’s 79 years ago!

That first game saw the New York Knicks beat Providence Steamrollers, 89-75 on Dec. 25, 1947, in the association’s second year of existence.

I’m a pretty knowledgable sports historian. I’ve never heard of the Providence Steamrollers.

And unlike the NFL which has had the Detroit Lions play on Thanksgiving since 1934 (except for the World War II years) and the Dallas Cowboys since 1966, there are no set NBA teams. Only the best of the best get to play Christmas Day and the teams and players look at it as an honor to be chosen.

Sure, it means time away from the family, but such is the life of a professional athlete.

Many hardcore basketball fans say the NBA season doesn’t really start until Christmas, anyway.

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While the schedule sometimes dictated games being played on Christmas Day, the NFL had never really treated the December holiday like the NBA did.

Until 2020, when the NFL tried to horn in on the Christmas action, purposely scheduling several games. Usually the most-viewed television programming every week, the NFL looked at it as a chance to poach eyes away from basketball.

Unfortunately, NFL games Thursday come at the end of the season and three games that seemed liked good matchups at the beginning of the season are absolute duds now. The Washington Commanders (4-11) are at the Dallas Cowboys (6-8-1) at 10 a.m. Neither team is making the playoffs.

At 1:30 p.m., you have a classic matchup in the NFC North, aka the “Black and Blue Division.” The Detroit Lions (8-7) face off with the 7-8 Minnesota Vikings. Both these teams have very slim chances of making the playoffs, so this might be the most significant game of the day.

The nightcap sees the Denver Broncos (12-3), who are looking to wrap up the No. 1 seed in the AFC, against the 6-9 Kansas City Chiefs, who lost quarterback Patrick Mahomes and will miss the playoffs for the first time in a decade.

Not a lot of fun to be had for those who are not fans of these teams. It will be interesting to see what the television rating say about the NBA vs the NFL.

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In a classic case of a foregone conclusion, the College of San Mateo football team was voted the unanimous No. 1 in the final JC Athletic Bureau coaches poll of the season.

CSM (12-1) is coming off its second-straight state championship, after holding off a furious Golden West fourth-quarter rally to post a 28-27 victory.

Golden West finished No. 2, while Modesto, the Nor Cal runner-up, and So Cal runner-up Saddleback, finished tied for No. 3.

The Bay 6 Conference, where the Bulldogs finished in a three-way tie for the title, had three other conference teams finish in the top 20: Diablo Valley (10-2) finished at No. 7, San Francisco (7-4) came in at No. 11, while Foothill (6-5) garnered the No. 19 spot.

Nathan Mollat has been covering high school sports in San Mateo County for the San Mateo Daily Journal. since 2001. He can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com.