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The NBA has become an integral part of the Christmas Day sports scene and the 2020-21 season got underway just in time to ensure that basketball fans would get their fill after opening presents on Christmas morning. The NBA Christmas Day 2020 schedule includes five games, with the Heat and Pelicans starting off the wall-to-wall action with a noon ET tip. That will be followed by Bucks vs. Warriors at 2:30 p.m. ET, Nets vs. Celtics at 5 p.m. ET, Lakers vs. Mavericks at 8 p.m. ET and finally Clippers vs. Nuggets at 10:30 p.m. ET.

In a potential Eastern Conference Finals preview, the Nets are three-point favorites over the Celtics in the latest NBA odds from William Hill Sportsbook. But is one dominant win over a Warriors team that is missing Klay Thompson (Achilles) enough for you to include the Nets in your Christmas Day NBA bets? Before making any 2020 NBA Christmas Day picks or parlays, you need to see what SportsLine's advanced computer model has to say. 

The SportsLine Projection Model simulates every NBA game 10,000 times, and it returned over $5,000 in profit on its top-rated NBA picks last season. The model is up nearly $8,100 over the past two seasons. Last year, it went a stunning 61-33 on top-rated picks against the spread, returning almost $2,500 on those selections alone. Anybody who has followed it has seen huge returns.

Now, it has set its sights on Friday's Christmas Day NBA action and revealed its best bets. If you parlay its picks, you could be looking at payout of over 20-1. You can only see them here.

Top NBA Christmas Day picks 

One part of the five-way parlay we'll give away: The model is backing the Clippers to cover as 2.5-point favorites on the road against the Nuggets to end Friday night. The Clippers beat the Lakers 116-109 in their season-opener on Tuesday while the Nuggets fell to the Kings 124-122 in overtime to begin their season on Wednesday.

The Nuggets struggled on the defensive glass immensely, grabbing just 67.3 percent of the available offensive rebounds. Sacramento's 17 offensive rebounds and now they'll take on a Clippers squad that had a 22.8 percent offensive rebound percentage against the Lakers.

That's the eighth-best offensive rebounding rate in the NBA with 28 of the 30 teams in the league having played one game so far. That's a big reason why the model says that the Clippers cover as 2.5-point favorites in nearly 60 percent of simulations with Paul George and Kawhi Leonard combining to score over 47 points on average.

How to make Christmas Day NBA parlays

The model also has identified four other extremely strong picks that need to be in your NBA parlays, including an underdog that has plenty of value, making this team a must-back. You can only see the model's best bets here. 

What are the top NBA picks for Friday? And which underdog do you need to jump all over? Visit SportsLine now to see the NBA best bets for Christmas Day, all from the model that has returned nearly $8,100 on its top-rated picks over the past two seasons, and find out.