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The Oklahoma City Thunder host the San Antonio Spurs on Christmas Day Thursday at 2:20 p.m. ET<\/a>. The Thunder are the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, while the Spurs are the second seed. <\/p>\n Spurs vs. Thunder will air on ABC and ESPN, and streams live on DIRECTV (free trial)<\/a>.<\/p>\n What: NBA regular season<\/p>\n Who: San Antonio Spurs vs. Oklahoma City Thunder<\/p>\n When: Thursday, Dec. 25, 2025<\/p>\n Where: Paycom Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma<\/p>\n Time: 2:30 p.m. ET<\/p>\n TV: ABC, ESPN<\/p>\n Live stream: DIRECTV (free trial)<\/a>, fuboTV (free trial)<\/a>, Sling<\/a><\/p>\n Here\u2019s a recent NBA story via the Associated Press:<\/p>\n What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, according to the catchy marketing slogan that has been around for years.<\/p>\n It\u2019ll likely be disproven this week.<\/p>\n The NBA loves rivalries: Lakers vs. Celtics, Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James in the never-ending GOAT debate, Reggie Miller vs. Madison Square Garden, that sort of thing. Another one has been brewing in recent months and might have finally reached official status last week in Las Vegas, when San Antonio ousted Oklahoma City in the NBA Cup semifinals and handed the Thunder what was just their second loss of the season.<\/p>\n As schedule luck would have it, this week brings not one, but two Spurs-Thunder rematches \u2014 one of them just happening to come on Christmas Day before what will be a global television audience. And the question was posed to Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander last week, whether this could become the best rivalry in the NBA.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a good chance,\u201d Gilgeous-Alexander said.<\/p>\n He\u2019s not wrong. It seems to meet the criteria.<\/p>\n The Thunder are the reigning champs with a roster that makes it seem like they should contend for more titles over the next several seasons. The Spurs are the franchise trying to recapture what was a perennial role as a championship contender, led by a generational talent in Victor Wembanyama. Gilgeous-Alexander is the reigning MVP; it won\u2019t be long until Wembanyama starts getting votes for that trophy. It doesn\u2019t seem like the teams are overly fond of one another; it\u2019s not wild and crazy when they meet, but it\u2019s also fair to say both sides seem to play like there\u2019s a little something extra on the line in these matchups.<\/p>\n And both teams are basically the biggest game in their respective towns; neither city has an NFL, NHL or Major League Baseball team to brag about.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019re on the right path,\u201d Wembanyama said last week. \u201cAnd for the first time in my career \u2014 not in the case of everybody in our group \u2014 but for the first time in my career, we\u2019re winning much more than we\u2019re losing. So, it\u2019s a lot of pleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n The Spurs are good again. That\u2019s already clear. They\u2019re 21-7 through 28 games; they went 22-60 in both the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, then won 34 games last year. Barring a collapse, which is possible in the absurdly loaded Western Conference, the Spurs are a playoff team and maybe one good enough to host Game 1 of a first- or second-round series. The job Mitch Johnson has done in his first full season as coach is evidence why the Spurs didn\u2019t hesitate about making him Gregg Popovich\u2019s successor.<\/p>\n And the Thunder are somewhere well past good. That\u2019s also clear. The NBA champions last season, winners of 68 regular season games a year ago, on pace this season to smash the point-differential record that they set last season. Sure, the Spurs beat them last week. The Thunder almost welcomed what that meant.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a good game for to us learn from in general,\u201d Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. \u201cIt\u2019s an 82-game season. We want to be a team that gets better through all of our experiences. You\u2019re not going to be perfect every game. When you have some slippage or you have a game where you\u2019re not on the ball in certain areas, you have to be a team that looks in the mirror on that and addresses it quickly and gets those things tightened back up. This team has always done an unbelievable job of that.\u201d<\/p>\n These two games that await \u2014 in San Antonio on Tuesday, in Oklahoma City on Thursday for the Christmas afternoon game \u2014 are just regular season contests. Nobody is clinching a playoff berth, nobody is clinching home-court, nobody is winning a trophy, nobody is getting eliminated. And unlike the NBA Cup game last week, there\u2019s no extra money at stake, either.<\/p>\n But they could see this rivalry grow a little more, especially after what happened in Vegas. They\u2019ll meet once in January, then once in early February, and then if they see each other again this season it won\u2019t be until the playoffs.<\/p>\n And if that happens, that\u2019s when the rivalry will get very real.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s always fun to go against good teams, especially when they are young, athletic, kind of play a similar brand,\u201d Gilgeous-Alexander said. \u201cAnd yeah, moments like (those) definitely help you sharpen tools for later in the season when you really want to win big.\u201d<\/p>\n Can I bet on the game? <\/p>\n Yes, you can bet<\/a> on the game from your phone in New York State, and we\u2019ve compiled some of the best introductory offers<\/a> to help navigate your first bets from BetMGM<\/a>, FanDuel<\/a>, DraftKings<\/a>, Bet365<\/a> and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you purchase a product through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. The Oklahoma City…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[42785,6382,82,84,83,1066],"class_list":["post-100816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-nba-cup","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-san-antonio-spurs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}