The Opening Tip

• DeMar DeRozan made one of the best passes we've seen last night 
• The Heat Culture court is definitely not super lame
• James Harden is getting flamed by everyone

1. The Bucks’ defense is impressively bad

We’re still in the section of the NBA season where future bad teams look like current good teams, which makes it hard to sift through storylines that actually matter.

One thing seems legit, though: The Bucks’ defense is the security guard meme.

10 games into the Dame-for-Jrue experiment … 

• Milwaukee has the 25th ranked defensive rating in the league. The Bucks were fourth last year. 

• Their general philosophy on transition defense is trending toward fuck it. They’re allowing 16.7 PPG in transition, 27th in the league. 

• The other day, Giannis dropped 54 on 25 shots and Milwaukee lost, letting up 126 to the Pacers, who somehow were ‘open or wide open’ on 47 of 48 attempted 3-pointers. 

No one was expecting the 2015 Warriors on defense when the Bucks traded for Dame, but they’re also not great on offense (seventh in offensive rating at 113.7) with a -2.2 net rating, which is 19th in the league and arguably more telling than their 6-4 record.

[READ: Bucks on defensive woes: ‘This is not who we are’]

2. Daily GIF: Woah

DeMar DeRozan did this last night. 

Two things: 

1. Woah
2. How?

3. Trivia time

The top five active scorers by points are LeBron, Kevin Durant, James Harden, Russell Westbrook and Steph Curry.

Who’s No. 6 at 21,918 career points?

Answer at the bottom.

4. The Heat want you to know they are the hardest working, best conditioned, most professional, unselfish, toughest, meanest, nastiest team in the NBA

This is Miami’s new ‘Heat Culture’ court, which they’ll occasionally use throughout this season. It’s definitely not the lamest thing we’ve ever seen, or a quote from Pat Riley which is describing a different team.

5. Mavericks broadcaster flambeés James Harden, goes viral, gets deleted

The James Harden-Clippers era is off to a terrible start. The team is 0-4 and the starting five of Harden, PG, Kawhi, Russ and Zubac has an 87.5 offensive rating, which is like if the Celtics’ white-out lineup (Kornet, D-White, Pritchard, Hauser, Svi Mykhailiuk) was a starting lineup. 

• More reasonable context: The Blazers have the worst offensive rating in the league at 105.2, almost 18 points better than the Clips' starters'.  

ANYWAYS, the best thing to come of the trade so far was Brian Dameris, Mavericks analyst, unleashing a two-minute rant detailing all the ways Harden has been a selfish NBA player over the last 10-ish years.  

• It went immediately viral, got the Ether treatment, then … disappeared from the Bally Sports Southwest account it was initially posted from.

A spokesperson told SI the video ‘did not reflect the Mavericks organization,’ which is obviously a cop-out but not the end of the world, because nothing ever truly gets erased from the internet.

6.  Quick Hits

• In an unhinged podcast appearance, Lou Williams claimed he’s a Hall of Famer, then said the Clippers purposely lost in the 2020 bubble because the title didn’t count. 
• Zion is getting cryptic. 
• Chris Paul: Dirty player
• Let’s check in on the 2023-24 Wizards.
• The Kornet Kontest is catching on.
• This might actually be the worst beat in NBA betting history. 
• Kelly Oubre, who got hit by a car, is expected to miss some time.

7.  Reads

• Don’t throw dirt on the Clippers yet [The Ringer]
• Victor vs. Chet has makings of NBA's next intense rivalry [ESPN]

Trivia answer: DeMar DeRozan