Basketball fans will wake up on Tuesday morning to find a full slate of NBA games under their Christmas trees, beginning with a 12 p.m. ET tip between the Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets, ending with a prime-time West Coast battle between the streaking Los Angeles Clippers and Denver Nuggets, and featuring a trio of marquee stocking-stuffer matchups crammed in the middle. One of those hotly anticipated contests will see the Atlantic Division-leading New York Knicks travel to Hollywood to take on the 13-14 Los Angeles Lakers, who've struggled out of the gate due in part to injuries to stars like Dwight Howard, Steve Nash and Pau Gasol, but are finally starting to get healthy as the new year approaches. While a jam-packed day of hoops is just about the perfect present for any NBA die-hard — assuming, of course, your local music retailer was all sold out of "A Very NBA Christmas" — it's not always so nice for the athletes who have to lace 'em up instead of relaxing with the family. To hear Lakers forward Metta World Peace tell it, the regular work schedule not only bums out his young ones — it actually makes him forget about the holiday entirely. From Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times : "My kids don't like it. My youngest doesn't like it at all," [he] said. "I'm to a point now I forget it's Christmas, to tell you the truth. I buy the presents and I'm never home, so I totally forget about Christmas."
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