Report: East finalist Pacers left off NBA Christmas Day schedule for 20th straight year

Posted by Admin August 9, 2024 NBA

The Pacers returned to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 2014, played in the inaugural In-Season Tournament championship and boasted the highest-scoring offense in the NBA in 2023-24 but even that wasn’t enough to earn them a spot on the NBA’s Christmas Day docket, one of the marquee days on the regular season calendar.

The Pacers haven’t played on Christmas Day since 2004, which is the third-longest streak of any NBA team without a Christmas Day game. Only Sacramento (2003) and the Charlotte Hornets (re-established in 2004 without appearing in a Christmas game) have gone longer.

The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported Thursday night on the five matchups for this year’s Christmas Day games without the Pacers included. According to Charania, the Knicks — who the Pacers defeated in seven games in the Eastern Conference semifinals — will host Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs, maintaining the tradition of New York hosting a game in Madison Square Garden on Christmas. The Timberwolves and Mavericks will meet in a Western Conference finals rematch in Dallas. The defending NBA champion Celtics will host the 76ers, fresh off the free agent signing of former Pacers All-Star Paul George. Steph Curry and the Warriors will host LeBron James and the Lakers. Kevin Durant and the Suns will host Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets.

The participants aren’t necessarily surprising as the NBA is, as usual, trying to showcase its biggest markets and its biggest individual superstars. Still, it adds evidence for the Pacers’ complaints that their achievements as a franchise tend not to bring a corresponding level of national television attention.

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The Pacers’ last Christmas Day game saw them lose at home to the Pistons 98-93 on Dec. 25, 2004. It was not only a rematch of the previous season’s Eastern Conference finals, but of the game in Detroit that led to the brawl termed “Malice in the Palace” in November of that year. The Pacers defeated the Knicks at home in 1999 and the Magic at home in 2000 after reaching the Eastern Conference finals in 1999 and the NBA Finals in 2000. Their only previous Christmas Day game came in 1981 when they lost to the Washington Bullets in the nation’s capital.

The Sacramento Kings have a longer drought without a Christmas Day appearance with their last game coming in 2003. The Charlotte Hornets have never played on Christmas Day, however the franchise that currently carries that name has only existed as an entity since 2004 when they began as an expansion franchise carrying the name the Charlotte Bobcats after the team previously known as the Charlotte Hornets left for New Orleans in 2002 and then later became the New Orleans Pelicans. That franchise never played on Christmas Day when it was in Charlotte from 1988-2002, but the New Orleans Hornets played on Christmas in 2008 and the Pelicans played on Christmas in 2020.

Year	Team
2024	Boston, Dallas, Denver, Golden State, L.A. Lakers, Minnesota, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio
2023	Miami, Milwaukee
2022	Memphis
2021	Atlanta, Brooklyn, Utah
2020	L.A. Clippers, New Orleans
2019	Houston, Toronto
2018	Oklahoma City, Portland
2017	Cleveland, Washington
2016	Chicago
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010	Orlando
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005	Detroit
2004	Indiana
2003	Sacramento
*	Neither the current Charlotte Hornets (created in 2004) nor the previous Charlotte Hornets (1988-89 to 2001-02) have played on Christmas