{"id":10195,"date":"2022-01-07T12:43:06","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T12:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/2022\/01\/07\/kemba-walker-makes-new-york-knicks-christmas-day-history\/"},"modified":"2022-01-07T12:43:09","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T12:43:09","slug":"kemba-walker-makes-new-york-knicks-christmas-day-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/kemba-walker-makes-new-york-knicks-christmas-day-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Kemba Walker Makes New York Knicks Christmas Day History"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"ad-disqus\">\n<p>No NBA player was feeling better on Christmas Day than Kemba Walker. About a month ago, even he couldn\u2019t dream of a Christmas present better than the experience he had in Madison Square Garden on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>After being\u00a0banished by head coach Tom Thibodeau from the rotation\u00a0nearly a month ago, numerous players being in and out of the NBA\u2019 Health and Safety protocols, and\u00a0Derrick Rose\u2018s ankle surgery\u00a0was the only way he got a chance to play against the Boston Celtics.\u00a0After making it clear that he wanted to play, Walker received the ultimate gift from his hometown fans with a\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nyknicks\/status\/1474818801317429250?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1474818801317429250%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nba.com%2Fnews%2Fknicks-kemba-walker-becomes-7th-nba-player-to-record-a-triple-double-on-christmas\">standing ovation<\/a>\u00a0when the New York Knicks beat the Atlanta Hawks 101-87.<\/p>\n<p>With a triple-double stat line of 10 points, 10 rebounds, and 12 assists, Walker got his first triple-double since 2014. He became the seventh NBA player with a triple-double on Christmas Day, joining Draymond Green, Russell Westbrook, LeBron James, and current Hall of Famers Billy Cunningham, John Havlicek, and Oscar Robertson.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Kemba Walker joined an impressive list of players to record <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NBAXmas?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#NBAXmas<\/a> triple-doubles. \ud83e\udd2f<\/p>\n<p>Draymond Green (2017)<br \/>Russell Westbrook (2013)<br \/>LeBron James (2010)<br \/>Billy Cunningham: (1970)<br \/>John Havlicek (1967)<br \/>Oscar Robertson: 4 times <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/IPdVlWdSk5\">pic.twitter.com\/IPdVlWdSk5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBA (@NBA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBA\/status\/1474831861964853251?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 25, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The performance came immediately after a sold-out arena chanted his name after Walker erupted for 44 points in a loss to the Washington Wizards on Thursday. After the game, Walker talked about his Christmas Day experience\u00a0via NBA.com.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was amazing,\u201d Walker said. \u201cThose are moments that you dream about. It\u2019s kind of hard to put it into words, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is not how we pictured it,\u201d he said. \u201cI ain\u2019t complaining, either.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">New York City native Kemba Walker puts up the first Christmas Day triple-double in <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nyknicks?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@nyknicks<\/a> history!<\/p>\n<p>Great <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NBAXmas?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#NBAXmas<\/a> moment at MSG on ESPN. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/nBUVSB0gsL\">pic.twitter.com\/nBUVSB0gsL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBA (@NBA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBA\/status\/1474819076048527364?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 25, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The hometown hero helped the New York Knicks win a Christmas Day for the first time in over a decade by becoming the first player ever to attain a triple-double on Christmas Day.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"http:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script>\n\t! function(f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {\n\t\tif (f.fbq) return;\n\t\tn = f.fbq = function() {\n\t\t\tn.callMethod ?\n\t\t\t\tn.callMethod.apply(n, arguments) : n.queue.push(arguments)\n\t\t};\n\t\tif (!f._fbq) f._fbq = n;\n\t\tn.push = n;\n\t\tn.loaded = !0;\n\t\tn.version = '2.0';\n\t\tn.queue = [];\n\t\tt = b.createElement(e);\n\t\tt.async = !0;\n\t\tt.src = v;\n\t\ts = b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n\t\ts.parentNode.insertBefore(t, s)\n\t}(window, document, 'script',\n\t\t'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n\tfbq('init', '166515104100547');\n\tfbq('track', 'PageView');\n\t<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No NBA player was feeling better on Christmas Day than Kemba Walker. About a month ago, even he couldn\u2019t dream of a Christmas present better than the experience he had in Madison Square Garden on Saturday afternoon. After being\u00a0banished by head coach Tom Thibodeau from the rotation\u00a0nearly a month ago, numerous players being in and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[626,669,920,215,619,921],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10195"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10197,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10195\/revisions\/10197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}