Miami Heat Are The Lone Semifinalist Not Featured On Christmas Day Slate
Several NBA superstars and top teams will showcase their skills on national television for the Christmas Day games.
The Miami Heat will not.
Despite making the conference finals last year, they won’t be part of the lineup. The Heat are the only semifinalist at home for the holiday.
Heat forward Jimmy Butler viewed the scheduling as a form of disrespect.
“I don’t feel like the NBA rock with the Miami Heat too much any way,” Butler said last week. “At least we get to play somewhere. We don’t got no TV games or nothing.”
Butler was referring to the Heat’s game in Mexico City last week against the San Antonio Spurs. The game is one of only 22 nationally-televised for the Heat. Eleven of those are on NBATV, including Saturday, but aren’t as high profile as ABC, TNT or ESPN.
Today’s game will feature LeBron James, Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, Stephen Curry, Ja Morant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Devin Booker, Joel Embiid and many more All-Stars.
Here’s the full Christmas schedule:
Philadelphia 76ers vs. New York Knicks, noon
Los Angeles Lakers vs. Dallas Mavericks, 2:30 p.m.
Boston Celtics vs. Milwaukee Bucks, 5 p.m.
Golden State Warriors vs. Memphis Grizzlies, 8 p.m.
Denver Nuggets vs. Phoenix Suns, 10:30 p.m.
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Shandel Richardson covers the Miami Heat for Inside The Heat.
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