Celtics return to Christmas Day game

The Celts will play the 76ers at TD Garden on Christmas and open the season at home also against Philadelphia.

It took the most storied franchise in NBA history 71 years to host its first Christmas Day game in Boston.

It didn’t take long to get a second holiday date on the parquet.

The Celtics will host the Philadelphia 76ers on Dec. 25 at 5:30 p.m. as part of the NBA’s biggest day of the regular season. It is the second straight year that Boston will be home for Christmas after it hosted the first TD Garden holiday affair last year against the Washington Wizards.

The Celtics have played on Christmas 31 times prior with the only other “home” date being a neutral-site game in New York where Boston was technically listed as the host team.

For decades, the Bruins schedule and holiday ice events at the Bruins-owned arena prevented the Celtics from hosting games on Christmas – the story that late Celtics coach and team president Red Auerbach wanted Garden employees to have the holiday off was more based in a cute myth than reality – as they remained on the road during the two Big 3 eras. Once the Celtics were able to start hosting games, their standing in the league didn’t qualify them as a worthy participant quite yet.

But that all changed in the past two years when the Celtics reached the Eastern Conference finals in 2017 and were picked to host the Wizards in a conference semifinals rematch last Christmas. Now Boston will host Philadelphia in a second straight conference semifinals rematch after the Celtics dispatched the 76ers in five games in May.

The game will also be a rematch of opening night when the Celtics will tip off the NBA season for the second straight year at 8 p.m. – also at TD Garden against the 76ers – on Oct. 16. That promises to be a surreal and emotional scene as Gordon Hayward is expected to return to the court for his first regular-season game since he suffered a catastrophic, season-ending ankle injury just five minutes into last year’s opener at Cleveland.

Kyrie Irving is also expected to be fully cleared from his knee infection for training camp as the two All-Stars, along with Daniel Theis (knee), rejoin the core of a roster that made it to within one victory of the NBA Finals without them this past spring.

With all the star power and NBA Finals anticipation in Boston -- and LeBron James now in Los Angeles with the Lakers -- it is no surprise the Celtics were all over the marquee schedule the league announced on Wednesday. The Celtics will also travel to Toronto to face the Raptors in an ESPN game on Oct. 19 as part of the NBA’s Opening Week.

The full, 82-game regular season schedule will be released on Friday.

The NBA, once again, showed it is not an equal-opportunity showcase in the marquee games, which include opening night, Christmas Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as it leaned heavily on powerhouse teams, big markets and superstar players.

The Golden State Warriors will raise the banner against the Oklahoma City Thunder as the second half of the opening night doubleheader. The Warriors will also host James and the Lakers on Christmas following Celtics/76ers, and on Martin Luther King Jr. Day night at 10:30.

The Celtics, 76ers, Lakers, Warriors, Thunder and Houston Rockets combine for 14 of the 20 slots in the 10 games being played over the three marquee dates, and are involved in all 14 of the slots being played in what is considered the prime-time windows of the dates – not including the noon and 10:30 p.m. slots on Christmas and the 5:30 p.m. slot on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.