The Philadelphia 76ers will be on National TV on Christmas Day when they face off against their division rival, the Boston Celtics.
This will be their fifth appearance on the festive holiday since the Joel Embiid era started, and the first time since 2022 (when they played against the New York Knicks) that they have played on Christmas.
Having them face off made sense during the offseason because the Celtics are the reigning NBA Champions while the Sixers were expected to be their toughest competitors.
However, the Celtics have mostly kept pace with how they played last season and the Sixers have endured a ton of woes thus far. Suffering injury after injury, the Sixers have rarely had their team fully healthy.
Despite that, The Ringer ranked the Sixers-Celtics Christmas game as the second-best game in terms of entertainment value, with only the San Antonio Spurs vs. Knicks game ranking higher.
Their game was ranked so high because, unlike previous seasons, the Sixers have a wing counter for Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown: Paul George.
That will be an interesting subplot, but the Sixers will definitely have their work cut out for them against Boston.
Christmas Day may not tell the whole story
There’s no telling how the Sixers will fare against perhaps their most heard rival in the NBA, but they won’t be fully healthy when they go up against the Celtics.
With Jared McCain out indefinitely, the Sixers won’t get to see how they face off against the defending champions. Last year, the Sixers went 1-4 against the Celtics, but it was impressive enough that they handed out one of their 21 losses total that season.
That was a different Sixers team with a different makeup while the Celtics remained mostly the same. Since the Sixers have been playing better, the game should still be entertaining come Christmas day.
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