This week, we explore a tasty subplot in New Orleans, serious issues in Golden State, Aleksej Pokusevski and the Thunder coming into focus — and why there’s so little juice surrounding a ridiculous Joel Embiid.
1. The monumental Joel Embiid lifting a sloggy offense
You could watch basketball for 30 years and not see five two-way performances as dominant as Embiid’s 59-point, seven-block masterpiece against the Utah Jazz on Sunday.
On some of those blocks, Embiid traversed enormous distances but somehow began those rotations the moment ball handlers put their heads down — so they didn’t see Embiid coming, or register that he had left someone open. The combination of speed, timing, and ferocity is almost unparalleled in NBA history. It was jaw-dropping.
Against pick-and-rolls, he planted himself between ball handler and roller — on his toes, arms spread, a threat to snuff any shot or pass. He ignored fakes. Utah’s ball handlers either froze, or made desperate decisions. From what is normally a position of vulnerability — one player guarding two — Embiid bent the game to his will.
And yet I felt almost equal parts awe and pity watching him drag the Sixers to a close win. Without James Harden, Philly seems to have zero plan on offense other than to walk the ball up, toss it to Embiid, and pray.
Oh, sure, sometimes they run stuff. They just don’t run it with much conviction. Tyrese Maxey is a decent playmaker, but he’s not quite ready to orchestrate over 48 minutes.
A few Sixers execute stray, half-hearted cuts around Embiid. They are not cutting to score. They are cutting to get out of the way. There is no juice. Everything is way too hard.
The Sixers rank 17th in points allowed per possession, and they are scoring at about the same rate regardless of whether Embiid is on the floor — and even when he and Harden play together. Only two teams average more isolation plays, per Second Spectrum. Embiid is isolating at a career-high rate. The Sixers are averaging an incredible 1.2 points when Embiid shoots out of an isolation or dishes to a teammate who fires — a mark that would have ranked No. 2 overall last season among players with at least 100 isos.
Even before Harden’s injury, Philly too often alternated between stagnant Harden ball and stagnant Embiid ball — with little connective tissue between them.
The Harden-Embiid pick-and-roll is supposed to constitute that connective tissue. When the Sixers run it with purpose, it does — though it has not been nearly as effective early this season, per Second Spectrum. Harden and Embiid need to run it with oomph. Everyone — including Doc Rivers — needs to help keep the offense flowing around that central action.
What they are doing now won’t cut it against elite defenses.
The Thunder have so many young guys to explore, it has been hard for them to craft any coherent rotation or style. But when they use certain player combinations, you glimpse the outlines of an identity.
That is Pokusevski at center, surrounded by four perimeter players — two very different ball-handlers in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Josh Giddey, and two more complementary types in Luguentz Dort and Jalen Williams. That’s a team. That makes sense.
The Thunder are plus-2 per 100 possessions with Gilgeous-Alexander on the floor and Pokusevski as the only big man, per Cleaning The Glass.
Pokusevski has dialed back some of his more, umm, adventurous turnovers. He’s shooting 37% on 3s, and his frozen-rope jumper looks softer. (That’s probably Chip Engelland at work.) Beware of his rim protection; Pokusevski is swatting 2.5 shots per 36 minutes, double his career rate.
On a lighter note, does any current NBA player (we see you, Victor Wembanyama) cover more ground on an up-and-under?
Dort finally started hitting some 3s. Giddey has a deep bag of tricks to neutralize the “go under everything” defense. Williams is a whip-smart passer, and can really move his feet on defense. Chet Holmgren hasn’t even played.
The Thunder won’t wilt easily. They’re 7-8 with a plus-1 total scoring margin. They’ve hung near the top 10 in defense, though they are over-reliant on forcing turnovers. (They allow the second-most shots at the rim.)
I hope the Thunder keep Gilgeous-Alexander even as the other 29 teams assume (without much real evidence) he’ll agitate for a trade at some point. At 24, he’s older than most of this roster, but the Thunder don’t have anyone else to consistently break down defenses. Without that player, rebuilds stall for years. Ask the Orlando Magic.
3. The Blazers, dialed in on defense
The Blazers don’t have great defensive talent. There are minor warning signs they might slip a bit; they’re giving up tons of 3s and shots at the rim, and opponents are ice cold on 2s.
But Portland ranking No. 7 in points allowed per possession is not smoke and mirrors. The Blazers are stocked with tweener forwards who cover huge amounts of space. With those guys roaming the wings — rotating inside to help, then back out — the Blazers can get away with having Jusuf Nurkic and Drew Eubanks corral pick-and-rolls up high in the aggressive system that imploded last season. The wings help on the glass, too.
The Blazers are creative, toggling between schemes; Portland has played more zone than everyone but the Miami Heat, and it has allowed a paltry 0.93 points per possession in zone, per Second Spectrum. The Blazers sometimes switch everything with Trendon Watford at center.
They nail all the little things.
New Orleans runs that pick-and-roll with only one player (Brandon Ingram) on the weak side. The goal is to make Ingram’s defender choose: stay home and let Jonas Valanciunas run free, or help and risk an open triple.
The Blazers sniff it out. They help instead from the strong side, where there are multiple New Orleans players; Anfernee Simons darts inside, leaving Justise Winslow between Herbert Jones Jr. and Trey Murphy III. Winslow smothers Murphy’s corner 3, and Simons rotates onto Jones — leaving Jones (4-of-21 on 3s) a cushion.
This dastardly Phoenix Suns set has claimed many victims:
Devin Booker makes an unconventional baseline cut to the strong side, while Chris Paul runs a pick-and-roll. Booker’s cut is designed to confuse the defense — to yank Portland’s help defenders out of position, and conjure an open triple for Booker or a dunk for Deandre Ayton.
Portland is unruffled. Josh Hart sticks to Booker. Keon Johnson, guarding Mikal Bridges on the left wing, anticipates Hart’s decision and sinks in to help on Ayton. The Blazers were ready.
You move in sync like this only if you’re well-coached and all five players are dialed in. Portland makes you earn everything.
4. The small-ball Heat are *really* small
Most of the fretting about Miami’s uneven start has focused on its clunky offense, but the Heat rank 18th in points allowed per possession — below #HeatCulture standards, and not good enough to duplicate last year’s conference finals run.
They are probably a little better than their standing suggests. Miami ranks average or better in defensive rebounding, forcing turnovers, and opponent free throw rate. The Heat’s switchy, zone-heavy protect-the-paint scheme concedes heaps of 3s, and opponents have hit 37.6% so far — eighth-highest.
But with P.J. Tucker gone, the Heat are playing a little smaller — with less physicality — and opponents sense it’s open season on the rim if they draw Bam Adebayo out to the perimeter:
The only downside of Adebayo’s switchability is that switching can take him away from the rim and the action — rendering one of the league’s best defenders borderline irrelevant at the end of some possessions.
Tucker isn’t taller than Miami’s replacements for him, but he’s bigger and stronger, and has experience as a rim-protector after playing small-ball center for the Houston Rockets. It hurts if he hits you. Tucker makes you think twice about encroaching in a way Max Strus and Caleb Martin just don’t. Heat opponents have hit 70% at the rim — fifth highest in the league.
The offense will start clicking as Miami gets more reps with Tyler Herro as a starter, but this team feels slow and ground bound. Kyle Lowry has perked up in the last week, but he’s looked sluggish and frustrated most of the season — as if he knows his body can no longer execute what his mind envisions.
If this is who Lowry is, Miami may have to fight all season to avoid play-in purgatory..
5. New subplots in the Jose Alvarado show
Several coaches told me in the preseason they expected some guards to imitate Jose Alvarado’s crouching hide-and-seek steals in the backcourt. This Gabe Vincent theft might be as much homage to T.J. McConnell as Alvarado, but I’m counting it because of the way Vincent conceals himself behind Kelly Oubre Jr.:
Meanwhile, there are new layers to Alvarado’s cat-and-mouse game. Behold the absurd spectacle of Alvarado kneeling in the corner to try to trick the Blazers into thinking the coast is clear:
But opponents are onto Alvarado. They know he might be lurking — a horror movie villain just behind that door. They have their heads on a swivel. The Blazers even set up a three-man Alvarado blockade as Justise Winslow brings the ball up:
I like to imagine Alvarado’s house has a whiteboard where he diagrams increasingly complex methods of pulling this off.
Alvarado is more than cat burglar, or plucky overachiever. He changes games off the bench, and is forcing Willie Green into tough lineup choices. Alvarado, Brandon Ingram and CJ McCollum have played only 35 minutes together. All three are ball handlers. Zion Williamson needs the ball, too. Add one center, and all the Pelicans’ rangy support wings — including their best defender (Herbert Jones Jr.) and best shooter (Trey Murphy III) — are on the bench.
(Another alternative is playing Williamson at center, an alignment that has been wildly effective in a teensy sample.)
The Pelicans are plus-26 in those 35 Alvarado/Ingram/McCollum minutes. They’ve blitzed opponents by nine points per 100 possessions with Alvarado on the floor — and played about even without him. Alvarado has hit 40% on 3s — good enough for a spot-up role.
Alvarado long ago supplanted Devonte’ Graham, and he’s making a case for more minutes. Alvarado and Dyson Daniels might bump Graham from the rotation altogether, and should at least render the Graham-McCollum pairing unnecessary given its limitations on defense.
6. The Orlando Magic’s guard play
The Magic face a fascinating medium-term decision: whether to go all-in for a lead guard if yet another visit to the lottery doesn’t deliver a transcendent talent. I liked the Magic as a stealth Donovan Mitchell team, but they don’t appear to have dived deeply there, sources said.
The Magic can run offense through Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero; Orlando has scored 113 points per 100 possessions when those two share the floor, equivalent to the No. 10 offense.
Wendell Carter Jr. keeps adding both power and finesse; he’s only 23. (Fun question that sounds absurd only because no one watches the Magic: Would you rather have Carter or Deandre Ayton for the next five years?) Perhaps the Magic think they can build an offense by surrounding those three with caretaker point guards — Patrick Beverley types.
Jalen Suggs could become an elite version of that player. He is not (so far) on a traditional “lead guard” trajectory. He’s shooting 30% on 3s and coughing the ball up at an alarming rate. Entry passes are sometimes a struggle. The Magic are threatening to overtake the Rockets for the league’s highest turnover rate, and out-turnovering the Rockets is an accomplishment.
Of course, Cole Anthony and Markelle Fultz are hurt. Anthony is at worst a high-level backup. I’m not sure he has the shooting or playmaking to become a plus long-term starter, but we’ll see. Fultz needs the ball because of his wonky jumper, and he’s not good enough with it to siphon touches from Wagner and Banchero. (Fultz has been solid in Orlando, but he has played 26 games since the end of the 2019-2020 season.)
Maybe Wagner and Banchero — especially Banchero — are so good the Magic can invest resources in defense and spot-up shooting. But my hunch is they will need a stud guard.
Bouknight is facing a DWI charge after his arrest last month, so anything on the court is trivial. But the Charlotte Hornets used the No. 11 pick on Bouknight in 2021, and they want to see what they have after Bouknight logged only 304 minutes last season.
The early results are not encouraging for a franchise that needs more certainty around LaMelo Ball. Three recent first-round picks — Bouknight, Kai Jones, and Mark Williams — barely play. Nick Richards, a second-round pick, has outplayed all three by miles. (JT Thor, the 37th pick in 2021, has shown flashes.) Miles Bridges’ future is uncertain after he pleaded no contest to one felony domestic violence charge.
Bouknight has an electric first step and some unusual flourishes to his game. But his decision-making can go haywire, leaning toward shooting above all else:
That has to be a pass to Jalen McDaniels screaming down the right wing. Bouknight is shooting 33.7%. Yuck.
On defense, I’m not sure there is a more transfixed ball watcher in the league. Bouknight loses shooters all the time:
The Hornets are 4-12 after an injury-riddled start, and should probably hunt one of the league’s three worst records. Can Michael Jordan stomach that?
8. The simple issues with Golden State’s defense
If you want to know why the Warriors are 27th in defense, start at the point of attack:
Jordan Poole has been a part of too many weird breakdowns like this — instances in which he volunteers a pathway to the rim, perhaps assuming (wrongly) help will be there.
That’s De’Aaron Fox, but it can’t be so easy. Blow-bys lead to reaching fouls; the Warriors are dead stinking last in opponent free throw rate. Lineups with both Poole and Klay Thompson are putting opponents on the line at a rate that basically breaks statistical models.
Thompson’s slippage is harder to spot.
He’s not as smooth changing directions. There is more airspace around him. He looked better than this in the playoffs; maybe Thompson needs time to get his legs right again.
Even Wiggins is fouling more. The Warriors are making uncharacteristic errors; they lost Jock Landale, a very large man, running the floor several times in Phoenix on Wednesday. Jonathan Kuminga, reinserted into the rotation after the Warriors assigned James Wiseman to the G League, is hazy away from the ball.
It’s all confusing. The Warriors’ starting five might be the best lineup in basketball. They are a damned symphony. That group is plus-77 in 165 minutes. All other lineups are minus-90 combined. (That mirrors Stephen Curry’s splits. Maybe it’s all Curry?)
That split is really unusual; which number best represents Golden State’s true level? If the starters are so good, plugging one or two into bench units should fix things. Kerr is trying that; we’ll see if any starter other than Curry can prop up reserve-heavy groups.
The Warriors need sustained health from Donte DiVincenzo, and fewer fouls and turnovers from Moses Moody. Anything from Andre Iguodala would help. JaMychal Green has to be better.
I’d bet on the Warriors catching a rhythm, but I’d expect them to investigate the trade market with some urgency if they’re hovering around .500 in a month. They owe that to Curry.
9. The Sacramento Kings’ (red) velvety offense
We don’t talk much about pace within half-court offenses, but that is the electric current powering the Kings’ absolutely rollicking No. 2-ranked outfit. The Kings get out in transition with Fox, but they are not an outlier; they rank eighth in pace and fifth in fast-break points.
They are flying through half-court sets with a burst and purpose that is catching defenses on the back foot, and makes for a jarring contrast with teams who operate at three-quarters speed. The Kings sprint through cuts. They smash people with screens on and off the ball, and they are setting oodles of them — sometimes simultaneously on either side of the floor, shooters zooming everywhere. Guards curl around those picks, catch the ball, and accelerate into full-speed dribble attacks.
It is a nonstop cyclone around the Fox-Domantas Sabonis two-man game. There is nothing in the numbers suggesting the Kings’ offense is a fluke. (There are some signs — mostly opponent shot selection — their defense might soon improve from its current No. 26 spot.)
Kevin Huerter (who I’m pretty sure has not even hit rim on a 3 this season) is setting about 10 off-ball screens per 100 possessions — almost triple his screen-setting rate with the Atlanta Hawks, per Second Spectrum. The Kings are scoring an absurd 1.5 points per possession when those Huerter picks lead directly to shots.
The more screens orbiting Sabonis, the more likely one of them results in a switch — and a size mismatch for a very mean post-up brute. Sabonis doesn’t even have to touch the ball for the Kings to capitalize; defenses swarm to deny entry passes, and someone pops open.
The Kings are pinging the ball around the floor faster than any defense can move; they rank fourth in assist rate.
Sabonis is scoring about 1.2 points per possession out of post-ups, per Second Spectrum — a mark that would be near the top of the league over a full season. He and Fox are tied for the team lead in dimes.
The Kings have cracked 120 points in five straight games, highlighted by hanging 153 (not a typo) on the Brooklyn Nets this week. It’s a joy to watch.
10. Jersey propaganda
The best local broadcast crews mitigate the conflicts of interest baked into their jobs. They know how to be critical within a broader tone of hopefulness. They acknowledge unpleasant realities. They don’t trash referees, or pretend the world is against their team.
But it’s a little gross the way teams transform their broadcasters into salespeople for every new uniform. Networks turn the cameras on them as they caress jerseys like shopping channel pitchmen: Look at the lining here! Do you see that detailing? This is a one-of-a-kind item.
Every new jersey is a must-have!
Actually, some stink. Some are ugly. Some are bland. You know some of the broadcasters sit there thinking, “I can’t believe I have to pretend this gray cloth with some new font is the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen.” Stop making them do it.