Stephen Curry has returned<\/a> from injury to see if he can spark some postseason magic with Golden State. The coach of the year race might be wide open. The MVP race has tons of intrigue. Wembanyama and Denver\u2019s Nikola Jokic just waged an epic battle this past weekend, as did Dallas rookie Cooper Flagg and the Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 LeBron James \u2014 who came away raving about the league\u2019s top freshmen like Flagg, Charlotte\u2019s Kon Knueppel and Philadelphia\u2019s VJ Edgecombe.<\/p>\n\u201cLeague\u2019s in good hands with those rooks,\u201d said James, perhaps a passing-of-the-torch sort of sentiment from a 41-year-old who started his NBA career before anyone in that trio of rookie stars had even been born.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true there have already been more blowouts \u2014 entering Monday, 261 games had been decided by 20 or more points, and 90 games had been decided by 30 or more points \u2014 than in any other season in league history. Those are dangerous stats, given how easy it is to turn those numbers into a conclusion that the overall NBA product is bad.<\/p>\n
But close games haven\u2019t gone away.<\/p>\n
Entering Monday, there were 47 NBA games this season decided by exactly one point and 176 decided by three points or less. The average totals in those categories over the last decade: 49 one-point games, 177 one-possession games.<\/p>\n
Are some teams giving up on some games? Absolutely.<\/p>\n
Did tanking happen? Of course it did.<\/p>\n
Did it water down the product? Sure seems that way.<\/p>\n
The playoffs should put all that in the rearview mirror. That\u2019s not to say there won\u2019t be blowouts; there will be. But at least there won\u2019t be tanking.<\/p>\n
Just look at the games that have mattered the most in the last few days \u2014 New York beating Atlanta 108-105 on Monday (when the Hawks\u2019 CJ McCollum was a millisecond late with a halfcourt heave that went in and would have forced overtime), Houston beating Golden State 117-116 on Sunday and Denver beating San Antonio 136-134 in overtime on Saturday. All down-to-the-wire, absolute thrillers. That\u2019s what\u2019s coming in the playoffs, not the likes of Utah losing games by 34 and 35 points in a three-day span, as was the case last week.<\/p>\n
Denver coach David Adelman is evidently aware the narrative exists, suggesting there\u2019s no good ball being played anywhere. Unprompted, he addressed it after that game against the Spurs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say this, just kind of off topic, but I know, pessimistic world, sports, pessimism is everywhere,\u201d Adelman said. \u201cI would pay to watch these two teams play. This is very good basketball. They\u2019re well coached. They have talented, fun players. They play together. Wembanyama, amazing talent. And then on our side, what we have … yeah, you can build off this for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Spurs felt the same way. Jokic was brilliant in that win for Denver; Wembanyama was brilliant as well for San Antonio in the loss, and was clearly looking ahead afterward to what that game could mean as far as developing some playoff readiness. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think the timing of everything is great,\u201d Wembanyama said after that loss. \u201cThere\u2019s no better way that we would have learned. There\u2019s no better outcome of this game to learn from for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
His eyes are already on the postseason. Plenty of teams are already pivoting that way, either for the play-in that begins April 14 or the start of the actual playoffs on April 18.<\/p>\n
Hopefully, it won\u2019t take long for the tanking and the blowouts to be forgotten. The push for the Larry O\u2019Brien Trophy awaits.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the league is so, so talented and there (are) so many matchups and so many good teams playing against each other,\u201d Jokic said. \u201cI think it\u2019s great to be a fan of basketball right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Around The NBA analyzes the biggest topics in the NBA during the season.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA, typically, saves its best for last. Here\u2019s hoping that rings true again this spring. You may…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,7504,160,585,765,225,250,123,1648,185,584,1739,121,1407,6,446,11,1136,7295,253,586,310,66,573,2098,582,693,971,580,1980],"class_list":{"0":"post-703073","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-c-j-mccollum","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-co-state-wire","12":"tag-colorado","13":"tag-cooper-flagg","14":"tag-david-adelman","15":"tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","16":"tag-j-b-bickerstaff","17":"tag-lebron-james","18":"tag-mi-state-wire","19":"tag-michigan","20":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","21":"tag-national-basketball-association","22":"tag-nba","23":"tag-nba-basketball","24":"tag-nba-playoffs","25":"tag-new-york","26":"tag-new-york-city","27":"tag-nikola-jokic","28":"tag-ok-state-wire","29":"tag-oklahoma","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-stephen-curry","32":"tag-texas","33":"tag-tx-state-wire","34":"tag-victor-wembanyama","35":"tag-vj-edgecombe","36":"tag-wi-state-wire","37":"tag-wisconsin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116362944398195953","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703073","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=703073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}