San Antonio<\/a> are the others) yet to have a losing streak of more than two games. They don’t get blown out; they have a league-low three losses by 10 points or more. They’re a league-best 17-6 against teams who were at .500 or better.<\/p>\nPlayoff basketball awaits in Detroit, and for the first time since 2008 there should be a Game 1 of a postseason series at home for the Pistons. Plenty of other teams \u2014 the Thunder, Boston, New York, San Antonio, Denver, Houston, Cleveland \u2014 are probably safe to call playoff locks at this point as well.<\/p>\n
The next two months will tell the tale of which teams find their way either into Round 1 or will be trying to land the No. 1 draft pick instead.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been hard. It\u2019s been a long journey so far, but just going to work every day, finding ways to connect with my teammates, connect with the city the best I can, and bring wins to the city,\u201d Cunningham said. \u201cThat\u2019s what the city respects and loves is people that go out there and compete every day. There were times they didn\u2019t like how we played. We figured it out, and now we have something going, something building. Just have to keep going now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The realistic contenders<\/p>\n
The top five teams in the NBA record-wise right now: Detroit, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Boston, Denver and New York (the Nuggets and Knicks are tied).<\/p>\n
Expect one of those clubs as the champion in June.<\/p>\n
Granted, in the early days the league had far fewer teams than it does now. But there have been only four instances of the eventual NBA Finals winner not being among the league’s top-five teams record-wise at the All-Star break.<\/p>\n
Milwaukee was seventh at the break in the coronavirus-affected 2020-21 season. Detroit was seventh at the break in 2003-04, Houston was ninth at the break in 1994-95 and Washington was eighth in 1977-78.<\/p>\n
The scoring race<\/p>\n
It looks like a two-person race for the scoring title: the Los Angeles Lakers’ Luka Doncic and Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.<\/p>\n
Doncic is averaging 32.8 points, Gilgeous-Alexander \u2014 the reigning champion \u2014 is averaging 31.8.<\/p>\n
Doncic won the scoring race in 2023-24; Gilgeous-Alexander could become the 14th player in NBA history to win the title in consecutive seasons.<\/p>\n
Award possibilities<\/p>\n
Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton \u2014 All-NBA picks last season \u2014 were going to be out of the awards mix this season because of their Achilles tendon tears suffered in last season’s playoffs, so it was clear from the outset of this season that the group of award winners this spring would be different.<\/p>\n
Turns out, it’s going to be very different.<\/p>\n
Because of the 65-game rule for eligibility for most player awards, the Lakers’ LeBron James is going to see his 21-year streak of making the All-NBA team end. He’s one of five All-NBA picks from last season who are assured of not making the team this year, joining Tatum, Haliburton, Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo and Oklahoma City’s Jalen Williams.<\/p>\n
On the brink of joining that list: Denver’s Nikola Jokic and Golden State’s Stephen Curry, who basically can miss one more game the rest of the way to preserve their award eligibility.<\/p>\n
Cleveland’s Evan Mobley \u2014 second-team All-NBA last season \u2014 has been inactive 13 times this year, so he doesn’t have a lot of missed-time wiggle room down the stretch of the season. The Lakers’ Austin Reaves, Washington’s Anthony Davis and Memphis’ Ja Morant are all well past the cutoff for eligibility as well.<\/p>\n
Others who are close to missing too much time for an All-NBA shot: Doncic, San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama, the Los Angeles Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard, Utah’s Lauri Markkanen and Phoenix’s Devin Booker.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\nCopyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Pistons had the worst record in franchise history at the All-Star break four years ago. And…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[495,1013,7,909,2292,576,123,364,77,529,976,185,368,6,253,209,66,573,575,278,693],"class_list":{"0":"post-608470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-anthony-davis","9":"tag-austin-reaves","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-cade-cunningham","12":"tag-devin-booker","13":"tag-evan-mobley","14":"tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","15":"tag-jalen-williams","16":"tag-jayson-tatum","17":"tag-kawhi-leonard","18":"tag-lauri-markkanen","19":"tag-lebron-james","20":"tag-luka-doncic","21":"tag-nba","22":"tag-nikola-jokic","23":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-stephen-curry","26":"tag-temetrius-morant","27":"tag-tyrese-haliburton","28":"tag-victor-wembanyama"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116087430024432533","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}