Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Self-Portrait; Eduoard Degas; 1852

The most important thing that happened this weekend in the NBA came to us from Minneapolis, where the Timberwolves — who haven’t won a playoff series in 20 years — made it clear that these Timberwolves are not the Timberwolves of the past two decades. Not even close. These Timberwolves believe in themselves and each other, and show no fear.

These Timberwolves put a Karl-Anthony Towns who has just returned from injury on Kevin Durant from the jump, tell KAT he can do it, and stick with it when it’s clear he cannot.

These Timberwolves do that so Jaden McDaniels can put Devin Booker in jail.

These Timberwolves do that so Anthony Edwards can put Bradley Beal in a box and drop it off of a third-floor balcony, race down the stairs before the box hits the ground, and uppercut the box as it falls.

These Timberwolves do that so Rudy Gobert — far from being played off the floor in the playoffs — can control the paint and deter drives from the aforementioned wings, and help hold Phoenix to three offensive rebounds in 42 opportunities.

And on the other end, these Timberwolves bully in the post, attack the rim, free up threes and, when needed, let a budding superstar cook.

And cook he did. He cooked every Sun except Jusuf Nurkic. They all took turns trying to slow down Ant in that epic second half, and no one had anything for him. You wonder if the doubles come earlier in Game 2, and if that puts the onus on Mike Conley (who was ice cold in Game 1) or KAT to roll out. You wonder if the Suns will dare Edwards to do it again. (That’s a bad dare, in my opinion. The dude looked extremely comfortable.)

You wonder if the Suns’ chances here are unrelated to what they are able or not able to do with Ant on that end, but rely on their scorers to rain hellfire on the … best defense in the NBA.

Tough task. McDaniels gave Booker no breathing room, and wasn’t fouling him. A different whistle wouldn’t have helped Book. Durant was terrific in isolation, but unless the Suns feed him enough to have 60, they absolutely need Booker or Beal to break free, or for Grayson Allen (cold and then injured in Game 1) or Eric Gordon to pop off. Phoenix has an offense capable of being unstoppable every once in a while. The Suns need that offense to show up in four of the next six games, or they will be gone in Round 1.

And based on the results of the first game of this series, it might be the case that they get bounced even if that unstoppable offense shows up, because there is no evidence the Suns can do enough to stop the Wolves.

Wolves back, indeed.

Hell NAW

Nickeil Alexander-Walker: 18 points, 4 steals. I still have no earthly idea why the Blazers and Jazz gave him up for exactly nothing in the past two years.

And 1

A moment of appreciation for Durant, who just so clearly loves basketball and competition and the playoffs and seeing a brash young player rise to the occassion.

Some veterans competitors would get aggrieved and grim and nasty when a young buck challenges their rule. Durant looks glad someone is stepping up. Hell yeah.

Scores

Magic 83, Cavaliers 97 — Eye-popping performance for Evan Mobley in the first half. He got some paint buckets out of the two-man game when the Magic switched a smaller player onto him, he hit his corner threes, he played excellent rim defense. Everything on his CV: it was there.

Donovan Mitchell came out like a person possessed, too, which is always impressive for the weird 1 PM Eastern playoff opener. The one thing about Mitchell I still don’t quite know after two seasons in Cleveland is whether he trusts anyone else on the roster on offense. He passes a lot … but there were a couple of key possessions in the first half where he insisted on going solo. It usually worked. It usually works. But an interesting wrinkle nonetheless. To be clear: I think in most cases he is certainly the team’s best option and he should continue to call his own number.

Orlando’s offense is dead in the water against a defense this good unless the guards can turn in, like, C- scoring performances. Jalen Suggs: 4/16. Gary Harris: 0/6. Cole Anthony: 0/7. Markelle Fultz: 0/4. That’s brutal!

Cleveland looks good. You wonder if in a week they’ll rely regret tanking into the Boston side of the bracket.

Suns 95, Timberwolves 120

Sixers 104, Knicks 111 — In the first half, Joel Embiid had 18 points in 16 minutes and the Sixers won his minutes by four. They lost the eight minutes he sat by 16. He sat a little extra because of this.

Icarus flow.

He surprisingly came back in the second half, and played 20 minutes of it, and while he was much less effective, the Sixers were +10 with him on the floor and -5 in the four minutes without. Overall the Sixers were +14 in Embiid’s 37 minutes and -21 in the 11 minutes without him. Philadelphia has to be able to survive longer without him.

The Sixers, meanwhile, did actually bottle up Jalen Brunson quite well (8/26 from the floor with six FTAs) but the glass was a nightmare for them. The Knicks had 23 offensive rebounds. Four Knicks had at least four of them.

Josh Hart with a gnarly, awesome 22-13 line. Trading Cam Reddish and a first for Hart seemed steep in 2023, but the first became Kris Murray (not a difference-maker at this point) and Hart has become the ur-Knick. Helluva player.

Lakers 103, Nuggets 114 — Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: the Lakers were thisclose from pulling off an upset over the Nuggets … only to lose by 11. Anthony Davis was phenomenal, matching Nikola Jokic beat for beat. Denver won the other battles, though.

L.A. led by 2 with about seven minutes left in the third, and the Nuggets ripped off a 20-4 run that ended up creating the margin Denver needed. During that run, Jokic scored or assisted on 17 straight points for the Nuggets: an alley-oop to Aaron Gordon, three assists on Kentavious Caldwell-Pope triples, three funky Joker buckets. Meanwhile, during the stretch the Lakers were 1/9 from the floor with zero offensive rebounds and two turnovers (both by LeBron).

Heat 94, Celtics 114 — Dominant win for Boston. Tyler Herro got bottled and it appears Playoff Mode Caleb Martin is not available. Jayson Tatum somehow played 41 minutes? Not sure why, but he did get a triple-double out of it. He also got this hard foul that had C’s fans hollerin’.

Dangerous play from Martin, but I’m skeptical there was anything intentional here. You know who deserves the blame? Joe Mazzulla. You’re aiming for 16 wins this postseason. This one is locked up. Get your stars out of the game.

I predicted Jaylen Brown for Finals MVP. Jrue Holiday would have been a valid guess, too. Just 2/8 from the floor and still had his imprint all over this game.

Mavericks 97, Clippers 109 — Kawhi Leonard sat for Game 1 with knee inflammation, and we learned during the broadcast that Kawhi has still not participating in full-contact work in the past few weeks. Alarming. But not as alarming as what the Clippers did to the Mavericks’ vaunted post-trades defense without Kawhi. Ivica Zubac destroyed Daniel Gafford and James Harden lit up Luka Doncic. In the fourth quarter, Paul George rose up to remind everyone that even the Mavericks’ best options to guard Paul George are wildly imperfect. The game was not nearly as close as the final score indicates. Total fake comeback here.

That’s the biggest area of concern for Dallas in my book: their defense can’t let Harden and Zubac dominate the way they did for long stretches. PG, I suspect, will have a good series. You can’t be giving up 20-point games to Zu.

That said, the obvious element for Dallas to fix is the terrible shooting luck from the second quarter, where the Mavs went a comically bad 2/21 from the floor. Single-digit shooting percentages for a whole quarter? That’s impressive. Many of the shots were tough; a lot of it was variance. But you know what? The Mavs shot 13/20 in the third. That’s also variance with a mix of good looks and tough shots. Kyrie Irving went off — a big concern for L.A., who can throw traps and maybe eventually Kawhi at Luka, but might not have the quick defender for Irving — but Dallas barely won the quarter because … of their defense.

This series is already fun, and should get more fun. L.A.’s crowd: quite good! Russell Westbrook is a lightning bolt made human.

Pacers 94, Bucks 109 — Never trust the Pacers, I guess. How embarrassing. Milwaukee had a 30-point lead in the first half. Damian Lillard sharpened the blade over the past week. Sheesh.

Dame is a top-tier “let him cook” player in this generation. Just thrilling when he gets going.

Andrew Nembhard is not the defensive answer here. Lillard went downhill on him early, which forced an adjustment, which then gave him the very little space he needed to let it fly. It just looks so natural and unforced.

This is opposed to how Tyrese Haliburton looked in his first playoff appearance, which was choppy and uncomfortable. He finished with 9 points, 8 assists, 3 turnovers against the No. 19 ranked defense missing its best defender. Credit the Bucks and their coaching staff for a killer gameplan. Rick Carlisle: back to drawing board.

Pelicans 92, Thunder 94 — Sunday’s only close game was worth the wait. The defenses lived up to the hype. The Pels made the Thunder’s scorers work hard for their points. New Orleans got most of its best action coming on second chances, as expected, having rebounded 18 of their 54 misses (33%, way too high for OKC to allow if they’re going to make a long playoff run). (I know some Thunder fans are annoyed that analysts keep talking about this particular Achilles heel given that the Thunder won the No. 1 seed and are excellent on both ends of the floor despite the rebounding issue. But there’s this funny thing about Achilles’ heel …)

Anyway, Cason Wallace, a rookie, played spectacular defense on C.J. McCollum with the game on the line.

I hated both of the Pelicans’ last two possessions, especially with Trey Murphy III having smoke coming out of his fingers and not getting touches. But part of the reason I hated them is because Wallace played such good defense. This is the upside of Mark Daigneault playing a crazy long rotation and making sure his young players got plenty of burn this season. He has a million combos to throw at opponents.

Excited to see how the series unfolds. I hope this wasn’t the Pelicans’ only arrow.

Schedule

A more manageable barrage of playoff games ahead. All times Eastern.

Magic at Cavaliers, 7, NBA TV — CLE leads 1-0
Sixers at Knicks, 7:30, TNT — NYK leads 1-0
Lakers at Nuggets, 10, TNT — DEN leads 1-0

Be excellent to each other.