CLEVELAND, Ohio — On Christmas morning, a child will unwrap a basketball. Someone will get new kicks. Maybe even a brand-new hoop in the driveway, where a kid pretends they’re playing at Madison Square Garden.
But before the television settles on NBA games as background music to laughter filling living rooms, the game is already reminding everyone who it is for. Kids.
And the Cavs, back on the league’s biggest holiday stage for the first time since 2018, may need that reminder more than anyone else. Kenny Atkinson admits that sometimes, even he forgets.
“I got upset today,” the Cavs head coach said even after their blowout win over the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday. “We were up 23, and I think they cut it to 18 there in the fourth quarter. And I started to get upset.”
Before the frustration could grow legs, Darius Garland intervened.
“I started to get upset, and Darius hit me on the cheek like this, just to remind me, like, I get uptight sometimes, and he’s like, smile,” Atkinson recalled. “It is a kids’ game, and there’s got to be joy in the game. As a coach, sometimes you can lose sight of that. But DG is kind of one that reminds me, like, kids’ game. Enjoy this thing.”
That exchange says as much about Cleveland’s internal wiring as it does about Christmas Day itself. Leadership in any locker room does not always arrive as a speech. Sometimes it arrives as permission to breathe.
For Garland, joy is not performative. It’s a necessity. The Cavs play freer when they feel it, move quicker when they trust it and weather slumps better when they protect it.
Jaylon Tyson, one of the youngest players in the room, sees the connection clearly.
“It means the world,” Tyson said when asked how important joy is to winning. “There’s going to be ups and downs. There’s going to be adversity. But when you play free, when you play basketball, we’re all here for a reason. All one through 15 of us are here for a reason. But when you play with that love for your teammates, for the game, it makes everything easier.”
Christmas Day amplifies that feeling because it collapses time.
For a few hours, veterans remember being kids. Kids see futures. And the league, often defined by business and math and margins, looks human again.
“There’s nothing like it,” Cavs veteran big man Thomas Bryant said. “As a kid, you watch those games, and you always dream about being a part of it.”
Bryant has played long enough to understand the balance required. The magic does not erase responsibility.
“You try to relish the moment as much as you can,” he said, “but understand there’s a job you have to do.”
That tension sits at the heart of Christmas basketball every year. It is joy layered over competition. Nostalgia sharpened by expectation. For Atkinson, it is the NBA’s purest stage.
“Man, if you’re not up for that, you better hang it up,” Atkinson said. “It’s going to be fun. It’s a celebration. To me, that’s the marquee game in the NBA. I participated in it. There’s nothing like going to The Garden at noon. But we’re playing a heck of a Knicks team, who is playing great. So, it’ll be a great challenge. But we’re really looking forward to it.”
But he also knows what follows. The long road back to the playoffs. The emotional dips. The mental fatigue. A season that stretches endlessly, where scrutiny is constant and joy easy to misplace.
It is why Christmas Day brings more than any ordinary game in the 82-game stretch.
Another way through is leadership that does not fracture under stress or in the biggest games. And the Cavs may have one of the best leaders in the NBA.
“I talk to our leaders a lot [about] how important their positivity is, their demeanor, their emotions, all that,” Atkinson added. “That’s a big part of weathering these types of stretches. And I’m just thankful we have great leaders. Starts with Don, obviously, who’s probably the most positive person I’ve ever been, positive athlete I’ve been around.”
Mitchell’s positivity does not stop at in-game moments, film sessions or words behind the scenes. Sometimes it shows up as generosity.
“I got everybody PlayStations and Xboxes for the group. Should be here soon,” Mitchell said before heading to New York.
It was said casually, but it fits the theme. Play. Together. Remember why they started.
That idea extends beyond Cleveland. It echoes across the league, even into opposing locker rooms.
Pelicans coach James Borrego has been on the other side of the equation. The version of coaching where every possession feels existential. Where joy becomes collateral damage.
“I lived and died with every game,” Borrego said before their game Tuesday in Cleveland. “And you’re like, why are you doing this? Are you really enjoying it?”
His perspective shifted during his year away from coaching on the sidelines. Instead, he was coaching through the eyes of his sons, rediscovering the game as something pure again.
“You got into this to enjoy it. It’s a game. It’s a game,” Borrego emphasized to himself. “They actually pay us to do this, to play a game. What an incredible opportunity. I think we’re all at our best when we have that youthful spirit.
“I think we’re all better as coaches, as players, when you’re enjoying the moment. You’re trusting that this is a game that we get to do and play for a living. … You got to smile a little bit more. You got to have a little more fun, have a little more joy, and I think that will rub off on our players as well.”
Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson is all smiles in the second half at Rocket Arena. John Kuntz, cleveland.com
Warriors head coach — and Atkinson’s mentor — Steve Kerr has watched his pupil make that adjustment over time. Watched the competitor learn to loosen his grip without losing his edge.
“He’s a competitor, and he’s smart as hell,” Kerr said of Atkinson before their contest on Dec. 6. “The New Yorker in him comes out sometimes, and it helped for him to come out to California and relax a little bit. I think the perspective that he gained with our team going through the gauntlet, feeling the ups and downs, definitely has helped him, and I think he’s navigating it beautifully now.”
That navigation will be tested again on Christmas Day, under bright lights, against a formidable Knicks team, with the entire league watching.
But for Cleveland, the game is a chance to honor the kid inside the professional. To protect joy in a season designed to exhaust it. To remember that before the contracts, before the criticism, before the results, there was simply love for the game.
The kind that makes a coach smile again.