A record is breaking. A forgotten team is ascending. And bums are rising.
Let’s open the notebook to run through three NBA trends that have caught my eye this week.
Records
During a one-point game, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander squared up guard Christian Braun. He dribbled left, stepped back and drained a 3-pointer that should have iced a game against the rival Denver Nuggets and his consistent competitor for MVP, Nikola Jokić.
Seconds later, Jokić and Jamal Murray combined for a game-tying, four-point play. Jokić drained the 3. Murray absorbed a simultaneous foul and hit the free throw.
The score didn’t stay tied for long.
On national television and with the clock only seconds away from expiration, Gilgeous-Alexander drove right, this time stepping back in the other direction to separate from his defender, Spencer Jones.
Swish.
A heave from Aaron Gordon clanked off the backboard. Gilgeous-Alexander strutted off the court, raising his shooting arm high, as if he never had to lower it. Fans and media alike called the MVP race for him that night.
35 points. 15 assists. Nine boards. Zero turnovers.
A game-icer and a then game-winner against, of all people, Jokić.
A performance so spectacular that the only rational response was to become a prisoner of the moment.
And yet, this wasn’t Gilgeous-Alexander’s greatest accomplishment of the week.
On the same night Gilgeous-Alexander downed the Nuggets, the Miami Heat’s Bam Adebayo went for 83 points, the second-highest single-game total ever, reminding the league that it is amidst the NBA’s equivalent of MLB’s 1990s. And yet, even while witnessing a juiced offensive era in real time, people continued to make the same mistake.
You saw it all over, references to Adebayo’s 83 as “record-setting.” Of course, it wasn’t. Wilt Chamberlain once scored 100 points in a game. And even though the explosion occurred more than six decades ago, everyone knows it, including the people who made the mistake. So, why do knowledgeable fans or media slip up in that fashion?
It’s because of a concept that’s embedded in all of our subconsciouses:
Wilt lives in his own universe. And thus, breaking a non-Wilt record might as well be holding the record itself.
Yet, two nights after Adebayo’s miraculous performance, two nights after Gilgeous-Alexander stunned the Nuggets, he then stunned the NBA world.
Gilgeous-Alexander has already won an MVP and is the favorite to win a second this season. He’s at one ring and counting. And now, he’s broken an actual Wilt record. He went for 35 more points Thursday against the Boston Celtics, his 127th consecutive game with 20-plus, one more than Chamberlain’s best streak and now the longest in league history.
Chamberlain scored 100. He once grabbed 55 rebounds in a game. He’s averaged more than 50 points in a season. His greatest record of all broke math, a season-long average of 48.5 minutes.
Wilt records don’t get broken.
Or so we thought.
Get your Suggs in a row
The Orlando Magic are sneaking up the standings, winners of six straight, a streak that includes blowouts, an impressive victory in Minnesota and a narrow one Wednesday over the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Magic have now risen above the Play-In Tournament with promise in the rearview. The current seventh- and eighth-place teams, the Philadelphia 76ers and Toronto Raptors, are reeling. But most importantly for Orlando, the defense is starting to take on last year’s dominant identity.
Heading into Thursday, the Magic were third in points allowed per possession since the All-Star break. They were a disappointing 14th during the first half of the season.
For all the talk of Orlando’s inconsistent half-court offense, the defense has been the starker change in this season’s team, especially when contrasted to years past, when Magic games were slugfests … in the good way. This was the NBA’s second-ranked defense in 2024-25. But for much of this season, you couldn’t tell. The physicality, the sharp rotations and (often because of injuries) the players were not present.
Could they all be rounding into form now?
“Our guys are doing a great job of making sure they’re getting into the basketball but not allowing a complete blow-by,” head coach Jamahl Mosley said. “Our bigs are at the rim protecting. Rotations are cleaner.”
Read between the lines.
It’s no coincidence that the Magic’s re-emergence lines up with the return of Jalen Suggs, who has been in and out of the lineup since entering the league five years ago. Suggs might not be the Magic’s best player but he has a case as their most important one. When he plays, when he does all the little-guy stuff the Magic need, when he disintegrates whoever he defends at the point of attack (as Mosley says, getting into the basketball but not allowing his guy to blow by him), the Magic win.
A lot.
When Mosley can deploy Suggs, especially without a minutes restriction, Orlando morphs into a different team.
The Magic are 20-8 when he plays more than 25 minutes. Heading into Thursday, they were allowing 10.6 fewer points per 100 possessions when he was on the court, according to Cleaning the Glass. For reference, that’s the difference between the last-ranked Utah Jazz’s defense and the third-ranked San Antonio Spurs’.
But Suggs is not saving the Magic, alone, even though they’re still not fully healthy. Franz Wagner has barely played since December. And now, one of the league’s most improved players, Anthony Black, is out, too.
No question, good fortune has been on Orlando’s side. During 12 post-break games, Magic opponents are shooting just 29 percent from 3-point range, which won’t continue. And as that number increases, Orlando’s defense won’t appear quite as formidable. But this isn’t just Magic luck.
That pesky point-of-attack defense is diverting drivers from the basket. They’re sticking closer to cutters. They went from a team that gave up too many layups and dunks to one that hardly ever allows anyone near the paint. Only 27 percent of their shots allowed over these 12 games have been at the rim, second-best in the NBA, per Cleaning the Glass.
They’ve made strategic changes, such as with Paolo Banchero, whose defense today is dramatically improved from what he showed at the start of the season — in part because Orlando is using him differently.
The Magic came out of the break with a new plan: Attach Banchero to guards, and switch pick-and-rolls far more often. During the first part of the season, the 6-foot-10 forward defended more like-sized players — wings, big men or off-ball threats. But since the end of February, he’s been the primary assignment on Luka Dončić, Jimmy Butler, Cade Cunningham and James Harden while also shifting over to bigger, ball-handling forwards, such as Kevin Durant and Julius Randle, in other moments.
Banchero has fought hard. Switching more has limited 3s while also taking away driving lanes. And the Magic have climbed out of the Play-In picture for now and, if they ever get healthy, maybe for good.
Chairman of the chairs
The Cavaliers have constructed a homecourt advantage no one else yields — and no, I’m not talking about Rocket Arena showboating the most unnecessarily deafening loudspeakers in the league. It’s all in the chairs.
The Cavs’ bench is a far more comfortable place to sit than where the opposition curls up. For proper analysis, we must first discuss what the chairs rest on: An uneven floor.
NBA fans, certainly ones in Cleveland, might already be aware of the Cavaliers’ quirky court, which is raised 10 inches above the ground below it. Beneath the court is ice, used for the American Hockey League’s Cleveland Monsters. Place the wood too close to the cold, and condensation builds, which provides conditions for unsafe and sloppy basketball.
The raised court has been a topic inside the league for years. A player is more likely to twist something, or worse, if he slips off it. It inspired national headlines in January, when Los Angeles Lakers star Dončić backpedaled into the stands after a 3-point attempt, injuring his ankle in the process. The Cavs responded by adding temporary extensions to the court.
But the raised floor, even if Cavaliers players might be more familiar with it, doesn’t provide much of a homecourt advantage.
It’s all in the chairs.
If you have ever been fortunate enough to sit courtside in an arena with a raised floor, then you can relate to the discomfort. The chairs in Cleveland are on the same level as the ice and are pushed just up against the hardwood, which means plop down in one and your feet will be positioned 10 inches higher than where they would be normally. Whichever team is playing the Cavs has the same experience — and these are unusually tall people who have to stay warm as their knees practically contort over their heads.
It was an issue for the Cavaliers, too, until last season, when they solved the problem with these:
The Cleveland Cavaliers have invested in new, higher, heated chairs for players and staff. (Fred Katz / The Athletic)
The organization installed electronic chairs with seat warmers built in, ones that can raise and lower depending on the user’s preference. They’re not the first franchise to implement fancy seats for their players. The Dallas Mavericks added high-tech seats years ago. The Milwaukee Bucks were the first ones to implement seat warmers. But there is one major difference.
The Cavaliers can use their seats to avoid the discomfort of a raised floor while they rest.
Look at the difference in height between the Cavs’ bench and the courtside seat next to it. The opposing bench has to sit at the same level as the chair on the right.
Teams will bring giant cushions for their big men to sit on during games, but those don’t leave much on the back of the chair to lean. And more importantly, they’re proportioned for a normal floor.
So, props to the Cavaliers, who are finding tiny advantages even when they’re just sitting on their bums.