Los Angeles Lakers vs. Denver Nuggets

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Two days before Christmas the city has already half left, and the freeways prove it. Whoever is still here on the twenty-third is here by choice or by obligation, and the ones who choose to spend the evening downtown get an unusually easy version of it: the drive works, the parking works, and the building is full of people in a conspicuously good mood. Denver is a real test, one of the genuinely elite opponents on the calendar and a team whose best player does things that are worth seeing in person rather than on a screen, because the passing only makes sense when you can see the whole floor at once. Go the night before everything shuts. It is the last ordinary evening of the year and it is better used than wasted. One practical note: the twenty-third is the last night the surrounding restaurants keep normal hours, so dinner afterwards is genuinely possible rather than theoretical.