Good morning. Let’s basketball.

The Heavenly and Earthly Trinities; Bartolome Esteban Murillo; 1675-82

Is the annual field of contenders for the NBA championship a small clique of exclusive teams, or a broad list of teams for whom the right breaks can make all the difference? This newsletter typically follows the latter philosophy, and recent results suggest its current preeminence. But the continued dominance of a trio of clubs this season, continued through results this weekend, makes it very difficult to ignore the likelihood that the champion will come from their ranks.

After a close call against the dreadful Hornets, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Milwaukee Bucks for the fourth time this season on Sunday. The Cavaliers are now 10-1 against the teams in the Nos. 3-6 slots in the East playoff picture (New York, Milwaukee, Indiana and Detroit). They are 4-0 against the Nos. 2-3 seeds in the West (the Lakers and Nuggets). They’ve won 14 straight games, are on pace for 69 wins and sit at 54-10. None of the non-elite teams seem to bother them at all, with the possible exception of the Atlanta Hawks and Houston Rockets.

The Boston Celtics drubbed the Lakers in a major showdown on Saturday, let the Lakers back in the game and held on for the win, all without Kristaps Porzingis. The defending champs are on pace for 59 wins and are 3-0 against their likely second round opponent, the Knicks. They finished 3-1 against the Nuggets and Lakers, and while they haven’t consistently dominated the next tier of East teams like Cleveland has, Boston has the No. 2 offense and No. 5 defense, a classic sign of a deeply impressive squad.

The Oklahoma City Thunder beat the faces off of the Nuggets on Sunday to knock Denver back out of the No. 2 seed. OKC is now 3-1 vs. Denver and the Lakers, and 19-6 overall against the nine teams likely to make up the West top 10 by the end of the season (Dallas is going to get caught by Phoenix, it is written). Not that it is likely to matter, but the Thunder are also currently 4-0 against the East Nos. 3-6 teams. Oh, by the way, the Thunder boast the second best net rating of all-time, trailing only the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, better known as the greatest team of all-time. OKC is on pace for 68 wins.

By all metrics — record, net rating, performance against common opponents, the eye test — these three teams are heads and torsos above everyone else. We have collectively tried to make the Nuggets a somewhat equal foil. It didn’t take: Denver is 1-6 against The Trio. We have collectively tried to make the Lakers a foil. Boston dismissed that new version, and now LeBron James is hurt. We are trying to elevate the Warriors to this class, but they didn’t get a crack at The Trio in the Butler era. (They were a surprisingly good 3-4 in the Kyle Anderson era against them.) The Knicks are having their best reason of this millenium, and they are 0-7 against The Trio.

OKC and Boston play Wednesday to wrap up The Trio’s season series against each other. The Celtics and Cavaliers split their four high-profile games. The Cavaliers and Thunder split their two huge showdowns. OKC dominated its first match-up with Boston. A Celtics-Cavaliers series feels like seven. A Thunder Finals series against either team feels really competitive. There’s no one in the East that appears even close to challenging Cleveland except Boston, and vice versa. The Bucks’ Giannis Exception just earned a series sweep at the hands of The Land. Likewise, the Nuggets’ Jokic Exception now has a 15-point loss, a 24-point loss and a 2-point win against OKC. While the West feels a little more unpredictable after the trade deadline, the Thunder have been thoroughly dominant, and every day it feels more unlikely than anyone can eject them from the playoffs before the Finals.

It’ll be a huge triumph for some other team if these three teams aren’t in the Final Four. A huge triumph, and a huge surprise. After six seasons of relative parity, it might be time for the some new superpowers to lock down the league for a while.

Scores

Friday

Cavaliers 118, Hornets 117 — Cleveland might be getting a little bored. Jarrett Allen might need to let his right hand heal. The Hornets somehow stuck around to the bitter end. This is also Exhibit A in my presentation to the Board of Governors that the ends of some games just take way too long with timeouts, free throws and all the rest.

Grizzlies 122, Mavericks 111 — The end of this close game was rather quick, though. Maybe it all shakes out in the end. Helluva fight by Dallas, with Brandon Williams and Naji Marshall going off. Ja Morant and Desmond Bane closed the door, though.

Jazz 109, Raptors 118

Blazers 89, Thunder 107 — OKC rested their top six players and won by 18 against a decent opponent. I don’t know how much the depth matters in the playoffs, but given the pedigree of the players involved, it’s pretty impressive.

Timberwolves 106, Heat 104

Spurs 109, Kings 127 — De’Aaron Fox was cheered extensively in his return to Sacramento.

Zach LaVine was the big scorer for Sacramento (he’s got it rippin’ right now), but they’d be totally feckless without Jonas Valanciunas. Reminder: the team picked JV up for two seconds.

Suns 141, Nuggets 149 — Christian Braun can’t end the game without permission from the Slip Reaper.

What a pass from Devin Booker. Simple, but perfect.

Anyways, the Nuggets still won and Nikola Jokic became the first player in NBA history to have 30-20-20. He actually had 31-21-22. He had more assists than three teams did on Friday night.

I want him to get Scott Skiles’ single-game assist record.

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Knicks 95, Clippers 105 — Life without Jalen Brunson is rather hard — he’s out two weeks.

Saturday

Nets 102, Hornets 105 — Per usual, I share this highlight from No. 0 on the Hornets for the Eric Collins call.

Pelicans 117, Rockets 146 — Alperen Sengun with two behind-the-back passes in the lane and a poster. Sheesh.

Wizards 118, Raptors 117 — I know Darko Rajakovic and the Raptors are doing what the NBA’s draft lottery incentive structure indicate they should do. I still think this stuff is poisonous for the program overall. In a 6-point game with 4:15 remaining, Rajakovic closed with R.J. Barrett, Scottie Barnes and Jakob Poeltl on the bench. They had played 24-28 minutes apiece. This is gross.

Pacers 118, Hawks 120 — DID YOU KNOW? Trae Young leads the NBA in clutch points this season. Clutch Player of the Year Trae Young?

Magic 111, Bucks 109 — Bad loss for the Bucks knowing they were facing Cleveland the next morning. A play like this will sure give you some confidence.

Is Franz Wagner getting coached up by injured bro Mo? Do I need to look up the Germany-Greece relationship page on Wikipedia?

Bulls 114, Heat 109

Pistons 110, Warriors 115 — Game on the line, the Pistons play some great defense to keep the ball away from Steph Curry and … Draymond Green, shooting 33% from three, nails an above-the-break triple. Sure.

This was all set in motion when Beef Stew had the temerity to call Steph small.

As I’ve been over recently, I’m not in the mindset to rally behind the Warriors. But trash talking Curry for anything other than 3-1 or his NIMBYism seems unnecessary.

In this game, Curry also hit the 25,000-point mark, which drew some surprise given how recently LeBron hit 50,000 points. But LeBron’s milestone was combined regular season and playoff scoring, whereas Steph hit 25,000 in the regular season only. When adding playoff scoring, Steph is close to 30,000 which … yeah, that’s a lot less than 50,000. Point taken. LeBron has 60% more regular season points than Steph and double the playoff points. He did get a 6-year NBA head start.

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Lakers 101, Celtics 111 — And that’s everything positive I’m going to be able to say about LeBron in this section. As mentioned in the lead section, James is out 1-2 weeks or so. Luka Doncic struggled mightily to start this one — it’s becoming a trend in Boston — but came around. The main story was Al Horford’s defense. The Lakers targeted him again and again, and again and again he stood the Lakers up.

Sunday

Nuggets 103, Thunder 127 — Helluva way to assert conference dominance and reinforce an MVP narrative. A 40-point performance for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (+11 in 35 minutes). 24-13-9 for Nikola Jokic (-13 in 41 minutes). Aaron Gordon barely paid and Russell Westbrook struggled mightily. But those are what we call excuses, and losing by 24 evaporates those.

The good news is that Denver gets another chance with a rematch Monday night. And by good news I mean terrible news.

Suns 125, Mavericks 116 — Huge win for Phoenix, even though this should not be a contest given the talent disparity on the active rosters right now. The Suns are now one game behind Dallas in the loss column and have won the tiebreaker. Phoenix should be No. 10.

Grizzlies 107, Pelicans 104 — I’m cracking up at Jose Alvarado attempting to maim his teammate Trey Murphy III on a long lob (what a finish!) and then doing the playmaking goggles.

Remember when Ja Morant retired from dunking? That was a fun five minutes.

I guess technically he did not break the vow on this one.

Jazz 122, Sixers 126 — Devastating win for Philadelphia.

Spurs 124, Timberwolves 141 — Minnesota’s totally in a groove right now, and just got Rudy Gobert back after getting Julius Randle back. Intriguing contestant in the not-OKC tier of the West.

Cavaliers 112, Bucks 100 — Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell went 8/28 from the floor and 2/15 from deep and the Cavaliers still won by double-digits. I don’t see how the Bucks have a shot at beating Cleveland in a playoff series, and I’m among the biggest Giannis believers alive!

Pistons 119, Blazers 112 — Toumani Camara must be a Curry fan because wow did he exact revenge on Beef Stew.

Kings 110, Clippers 111 — Whew, this was a helluva game, even if neither offense was very good throughout. (And in fact, the Kings offense was awful in the final couple minutes of regulation. And Brian Shaw, substitute teaching for Ty Lue, made some bizarre play calls.) Sacramento is missing two of its top four players, so competitive losses are encouraging even if this should have been a win with a 7-point lead with 1:48 left.

Setting personal allegiances aside, it’s really damn cool to see a Kawhi Leonard game-winner followed by a Kawhi Leonard celebration.

Schedule

After a busy weekend we have 12 games on Monday. All times Eastern. Important games get asterisks.

Sixers at Hawks, 7:30
Jazz at Celtics, 7:30
Lakers at Nets, 7:30
Hornets at Heat, 7:30
Wizards at Raptors, 7:30
Pacers at Bulls, 8
Magic at Rockets, 8
Suns at Grizzlies, 8
Nuggets at Thunder, 8, NBA TV***
Mavericks at Spurs, 8:30
Blazers at Warriors, 10
Knicks at Kings, 10:30, NBA TV*

Be excellent to each other.