NBA

The 5 Best NBA Christmas Day Performances

Which players have played their best on one of the NBA's most popular days of the regular season?

Christmas is a day for faith. A day for family. A day for giving. But, less commonly, it is a day for great basketball.

For as long as I can remember, Christmas day has been the most popular day of the NBA regular season -- and rightfully so. It's full of great matchups between top players and the best teams.

There have been a number of great games in past years, including some outstanding individual performances. This year should be no different. Within the five matchups, we get to see the likes of Carmelo Anthony, Karl-Anthony Towns, Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul, Jimmy Butler, and Kawhi Leonard. Then, there's the long-awaited rematch of the Cavaliers and Warriors, featuring Stephen Curry and LeBron James.

With those names and teams, there's bound to be some competitive games. And there's certainly the chance for a star performance or two.

Of those great individual showings in Christmases past, which have been the best?

With the help of Basketball Reference's Game Score -- a rough measure of a player's productivity for a single game (from 10 as an average performance to 40 as an outstanding performance) -- here are the five best Christmas Day games since the metric was first tracked back in 1984.