There have been two days in NBA history when the average margin of victory was at least 24 points on a day when a minimum of nine games were played.<\/p>\n
That’s two days in 80 years.<\/p>\n
And they were both this week.<\/p>\n
Welcome to Blowout Season in the NBA, where evidently some teams have completely let go of the rope. There were nine games on Friday, with the average margin of victory being 24.4 points. That topped the record of sorts set this past Sunday, when nine games saw an average winning margin of 24.0 points.<\/p>\n
Among Friday’s highlights (or lowlights, depending on perspective): New York beat Chicago by 40, Houston beat Utah by 34, Atlanta beat Brooklyn by 34, Toronto beat Memphis by 32 and Boston beat Milwaukee by 32.<\/p>\n
There have been roughly 2,600 days in NBA history that had at least nine games on the calendar. Only 10 of them ended with the average margin of victory that day topping 20 points \u2014 once in 1996 and the other nine all since 2021.<\/p>\n
The five games decided by 30 or more points tied an NBA single-day record. But, weirdly, it could be argued that the blowouts were all expected \u2014 given that all those teams were favorites of 13.5 points or more at tipoff, according to BetMGM Sportsbook.<\/p>\n
There have been 89 games decided by 30 or more points this season, continuing to smash the previous record of 80 set last year.<\/p>\n
For some perspective, the NBA saw 90 games decided by 30 or more points in its first 11 seasons combined.<\/p>\n
Who’s in and who’s out?<\/p>\n
Here’s what we know so far regarding the NBA playoff field for this season.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Eastern Conference playoff teams: Detroit, Boston, New York, Cleveland are in. At this point, Atlanta and Philadelphia would get the other two guaranteed spots, but those are not clinched.<\/p>\n
\u2014 East play-in teams: Nobody is locked into the play-in yet, but entering Saturday, the four teams headed there are Toronto, Charlotte, Orlando and Miami.<\/p>\n
\u2014 East eliminated teams: Milwaukee, Chicago, Indiana, Brooklyn and Washington.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Western Conference playoff teams: Oklahoma City, San Antonio, the Los Angeles Lakers, Denver and Houston are in. Minnesota is likely to grab the sixth and final guaranteed spot.<\/p>\n
\u2014 West play-in teams: Phoenix is probably going to the play-in tournament. Portland, the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State definitely are.<\/p>\n
\u2014 West eliminated teams: Memphis, New Orleans, Dallas, Utah and Sacramento.<\/p>\n
Friday recap<\/p>\n
\u2014 Hornets 129, Pacers 108: Charlotte made 24 3s, now 17-4 when making at least 19.<\/p>\n
\u2014 76ers 115, Timberwolves 103: Minnesota shot 38%, now 1-8 when shooting 41.5% or worse.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Hawks 141, Nets 107: Atlanta now 18-2 in its last 20 games, Brooklyn now 3-22 in its last 25 games.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Knicks 136, Bulls 96: Jordan Clarkson was +27 in nine minutes for New York.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Rockets 140, Jazz 106: Utah has led for a total of 4:44 in its last four games combined.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Celtics 133, Bucks 101: Jayson Tatum was one assist away from a second straight triple-double.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Raptors 128, Grizzlies 96: A 61-24 lead in bench scoring was the story for Toronto.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Magic 138, Mavericks 127: Dallas’ Cooper Flagg became the first teenager with a 50-point game in NBA history.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Pelicans-Kings: Maxime Raynaud scored 28 for Sacramento, which rallied from 17 down.<\/p>\n
Saturday’s schedule<\/p>\n
\u2014 Washington at Miami: Bam Adebayo scored 83 against the Wizards last month. The rematch!<\/p>\n
\u2014 San Antonio at Denver: Wembanyama vs. Nikola Jokic in potential West playoff pairing.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Detroit at Philadelphia: Sorry, Detroit. Michigan-Arizona Final Four game tips off during this one.<\/p>\n
Sunday’s schedule<\/p>\n
\u2014 Toronto at Boston: Celtics rolling toward No. 2 seed.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Washington at Brooklyn: Someone will win, possibly to their chagrin.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Phoenix at Chicago: Suns likely will be No. 7 in West play-in.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Memphis at Milwaukee: Doc Rivers can be announced as a Hall of Famer for first time.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Indiana at Cleveland: Cavaliers looking to tune up before playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Charlotte at Minnesota: The Hornets are playing without fear right now.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Orlando at New Orleans: Magic have to keep building some momentum.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Utah at Oklahoma City: Thunder just won\u2019t let the Spurs make up too much ground.<\/p>\n
\u2014 LA Lakers at Dallas: Neither team will have Luka Doncic, who remains beloved by Mavs fans.<\/p>\n
\u2014 LA Clippers at Sacramento: Clippers looking to get a home play-in game (or two, if needed).<\/p>\n
\u2014 Houston at Golden State: Warriors have five games to prep for the play-in, and this could be Stephen Curry\u2019s return.<\/p>\n
National TV schedule<\/p>\n
Saturday on Prime: San Antonio-Denver.<\/p>\n
Saturday on NBA TV: Detroit-Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
Sunday on NBA TV: Toronto-Boston.<\/p>\n
Sunday on NBC and Peacock: LA Lakers-Dallas, Houston-Golden State.<\/p>\n
Betting odds<\/p>\n
Oklahoma City (+130) is favored to win the NBA title, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, followed by San Antonio (+550), Boston (+600), Denver (+1100), Cleveland (+1200) and New York (+1800). Detroit, on its way to the No. 1 seed in the East, is +2500. And Luka Doncic’s injury sent the Los Angeles Lakers’ odds soaring, from +2500 beforehand to +12500 now.<\/p>\n
Key dates<\/p>\n
\u2014 April 10: All 30 teams play their 81st games of the season.<\/p>\n
\u2014 April 12: All 30 teams play their regular-season finales.<\/p>\n
\u2014 April 14, 15 and 17: NBA play-in tournament dates.<\/p>\n
\u2014 April 18 and 19: NBA playoff series openers.<\/p>\n
\u2014 May 2, 3 or 4: Conference semifinals begin.<\/p>\n
\u2014 May 10: NBA draft lottery.<\/p>\n
\u2014 May 10-17: NBA draft combine.<\/p>\n
\u2014 May 17 or 19: Eastern Conference finals begin on ESPN and ABC.<\/p>\n
\u2014 May 18 or 20: Western Conference finals begin on NBC and Peacock.<\/p>\n
\u2014 June 3: Game 1, NBA Finals on ABC. (Other finals dates: June 5, June 8, June 10, June 13, June 16 and June 19).<\/p>\n
Numbers watch<\/p>\n
Before Cooper Flagg (at 19 years, 103 days), the youngest player in NBA history with a 50-point game was Brandon Jennings, who scored 55 when he was 20 years, 52 days old. Flagg scored 51 in Dallas’ loss to Orlando on Friday.<\/p>\n
Stat of the day<\/p>\n
Cooper Flagg now has three games of 40 or more points in his rookie season. Only 11 rookies have had more such games, and the only two in the last half-century were Allen Iverson and Michael Jordan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There have been two days in NBA history when the average margin of victory was at least 24…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3779],"tags":[7,48,6,47,76,3883],"class_list":{"0":"post-698952","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando-magic","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-magic","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-orlando","12":"tag-orlando-magic","13":"tag-orlandomagic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116349882086047808","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698952","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=698952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}