On Christmas Day 2016, Omari Spellman, then 19, sat down with his family in Cleveland to watch LeBron James and the Cavaliers play the Warriors in one of the most entertaining Christmas Day games in the 72-year history of the event.
That was the game the Cavs won, 109-108, when Kyrie Irving hit a turnaround, fallaway jumper over Klay Thompson in the final seconds.
“Still remember Kyrie — no disrespect to Klay, I don’t know if he’d ever get upset about stuff like this — driving him down, spin, dribble, game-winner,” Spellman said from his locker, only a few stalls down from Thompson’s. “It’s weird to say, but it’s hard to have memories of good basketball without the Golden State Warriors, without the Cavs.”
Wednesday, instead of watching with his family, Spellman and several of his young teammates will play their first Christmas Day game when the Warriors face the Houston Rockets at Chase Center. It will be the seventh straight year the Warriors play on Christmas, but a new experience for much of the team.
For some, it will be surreal. For others, another day at work.
“For me, honestly? It’s just another game,” rookie forward Eric Paschall said. “It’s cool to play on Christmas, knowing you’re going to play on it and you’ve been watching it your whole life. But you’ve been playing your whole life, you take it as another game.”
Paschall also cites that 2016 Cavs-Warriors showdown as his favorite Christmas game. Six months after the Cavaliers had beaten the Warriors in the Finals and Kevin Durant joined Golden State, it was the most anticipated matchup of the holiday.
From their home in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., Paschall and his father watched the Cavs come back from a 14-point fourth-quarter deficit.
An instant classic.
“They had that crazy sequence,” Paschall said, reciting the details of a back-and-forth that ended with a coast-to-coast dunk by LeBron.
For rookie Ky Bowman, the 2011 game between the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers stands out. That year, the Christmas games also served as the season opener after a league-wide lockout delayed the start of the season. More to the point, for Bowman at least, his favorite player was the hero.
Bowman watched with his brothers in Havelock, N.C., as Derrick Rose, the NBA’s reigning MVP facing a one-point deficit with five seconds left, crossed over Derek Fisher and hit a game-winning floater in the lane.
“The floater,” Bowman said. “A shot like that… It’s going to go down in history on Christmas Day.”
In his first NBA season, Bowman will spend Christmas guarding James Harden and Russell Westbrook. He said he doesn’t know how it will feel playing on Christmas “until it hits, really.” He does know it will be different.
“Growing up watching it, but now actually being there for it. It’s going to be different,” he said.
Working on Christmas means limited time with family, but the new Warriors will plan around it. After the game, Spellman will be with his mother, stepfather, little brother and sister, all of whom came to the Bay for the holiday. Spellman is looking forward to the new experience.
“I would rather spend Christmas just doing regular Christmas with my family, opening gifts, having a good day, Christmas food, whatever,” Spellman said. “But the fact that we play on national television on Christmas? It’s like 1A, 1B.
“Now, if it was an away game, that would suck. If I was the Houston Rockets, that would suck having to fly to another city on Christmas.”
Bowman, who is on a two-way contract that dictates he spend time with the Warriors’ G League affiliate, will head to Santa Cruz on Christmas night to be with family.
Paschall, meanwhile, will Facetime with his parents, buy a present for his nephew, and then spend the rest of the night playing video games in his San Francisco apartment.
“Of course it’s hard to be away, but I have such a great family that it doesn’t really bother me that much,” Paschall said. “Because I know how much they care for me, how much they love me.
“They know that I’m living my dream.”
