Your guide to the 2017 NBA Christmas extravaganza

The NBA on Christmas is a lot. With five staggered games and few substantive breaks in action beyond halftime, you really need to prioritize what’s most important to catch, especially if you have children or guests. Luckily, we have a guide to your viewing experience.

Consider these our rankings on the five Christmas Day games based on wholly superficial criteria that boils down to this: Will the game be fun to watch? Consider this caveat, though: predicting which NBA games will turn into madhouse adventures is difficult, so keep your head on a pivot (and open up text notifications for @SBNationNBA once the action starts).

That said, here’s our best attempt to rank the games out in terms of watchability based on the teams’ quality, injury reports, and fun factors.

The New York Knicks always seem to get a Christmas game, no matter how low the expectations are when the schedule is made. But as it turns out, the Knicks are pretty good this year (weirdly enough). So are the Sixers! Well, so were the Sixers, until the curse of Jahlil Okafor set in. Philadelphia started 13-9 and was in the thick of the playoff race; since then, it’s gone 1-9.

It appears that all three international wunderkinds — Joel Embiid, Kristaps Porzingis, and Ben Simmons — will play, despite Embiid and Porzingis recently missing games due to injury. Their minutes could be reduced in efforts to bring them back responsibly. This may be much of the casual fandom’s introduction to Simmons, the rookie Australian maestro. What a treat for them!

Michael Beasley, maybe the most Knicksian player of our time, has been particularly electric on national TV this year. Watch out for him.

This would be a dynamite option if the Wolves weren’t so joyless in being the NBA’s most improved team. Really, the Lakers are hoping to follow Minnesota’s blueprint: add a big name veteran this summer and flip that plus the rising youth into a rising power next year. Jimmy Butler’s off the table, but perhaps Paul George or DeMarcus Cousins (or even LeBron James) is in the cards.

In the meantime, Lonzo Ball is slowly coming along (though he’ll miss this game with a shoulder sprain), Kyle Kuzma is an immaculate rookie, Brandon Ingram has shaken off the bust tags, and the Lakers are darn frisky. The Wolves are grinders who succeed on offense despite failing to play a beautiful style; defense and fourth quarters are their weakness. They also tend to play slow; we’ll see if the Lakers, who have the fastest pace in the league, can speed them up.

One other entertainment note on this game: TNT’s Inside the NBA crew — Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Shaq — will be calling the game. That should be, uh, interesting.

All of these games have the potential to be the best, most compelling contest of the day. That’s the beauty of the NBA: amazing lurks within all, poised to show itself at a moment’s notice. Wizards-Celtics has high potential for some of that amazing.

Bradley Beal has had himself a season, both with John Wall beside him and while Wall has recovered from injury. The Wizards have been inconsistent (owing to injury and depth issues) and are mired in an extremely tight race for the No. 4 seed. Washington is the most talented, accomplished team of the bunch, and ought to start showing it.

Boston, meanwhile, has been excellent despite losing Gordon Hayward minutes into the NBA season. While the long winning streak that carried the Celtics through November is but a memory, Jayson Tatum has continued to be a giant. Kyrie Irving is still weird as hell and the best ballhandler on this plane of existence or any other. Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart, Al Horford, Terry Rozier: all of them do what they do to great effect. It’s a shockingly fun team.

This should be a good game if everyone shows up to battle.

The Thunder are figuring things out. That it involves Russell Westbrook deciding to rekindle his MVP exploits — even at the expense of his teammates’ touches — is hardly a surprise. Oklahoma City is 10-3 in December and has won four straight, albeit against a fairly weak schedule.

The Rockets, meanwhile, have lost two straight — both with James Harden scoring 51, both without Chris Paul for at least part of the game. Houston’s now in a virtual tie with Golden State for the No. 1 seed. CP3 sat out on Friday and is a question mark for this game. The Rockets haven’t lost this season when Paul has played and finished.

This is a must-watch to find out if the Thunder are really getting there, and to see if the Rockets are really levels better than anyone but Golden State.

Stephen Curry is out. Draymond Green is a question mark. After all the NBA Finals battles, this regular season matchup won’t actually mean anything in the grand scheme.

However, a counterpoint: LeBron James vs. Kevin Durant.

Yes. Yes. That’ll do.

Appreciate one of the greatest ever in his prime. Appreciate what the Warriors would look like as Durant’s team. Appreciate Jordan Bell.

Appreciate a preview of June.