Milwaukee Bucks: Looking at their 3 best NBA Christmas Day moments

The Milwaukee Bucks’ return back to the Christmas Day slate

The Bucks’ fourth Christmas game in 1977 proved to be their last one for quite a while.

Despite the Bucks being a perennially good team throughout the Don Nelson era, which lasted to the 1986-87 season, Milwaukee never got the nod to play on the league’s hallowed holiday slate. The Bucks’ struggles throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century didn’t do them any favors as they continued to slump into irrelevancy and even almost extinction.

Finally, after 41 long years, the Bucks made their Christmas return when they took on the New York Knicks on December 25, 2018. It indeed proved to be a merry return for the Bucks as they beat the Knicks 109-95, which was led by Giannis Antetokounmpo’s double-double (30 points and 14 rebounds).

Along with Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee had five players in double figures and braved through a poor shooting performance where they went 6-for-32 from long range. Despite the circumstances, the Bucks comfortably put away the hapless Knicks over the second half.

Coming away with a win is always nice to see, but the Bucks returning to play on Christmas after not doing so for four decades coincided with their long-awaited breakthrough as they went on to win 60 games for the 2018-19 season. While they came up short in that year’s Eastern Conference Finals, that season proved to be the beginning of this era of Bucks basketball with head coach Mike Budenholzer in charge.

Time will only tell what will be in store for the Bucks’ seventh Christmas Day game Friday afternoon, but they have surely established themselves as a fixture for the holiday. That won’t change as along as Giannis Antetokounmpo is in town.