The Bounce: A defense better than the Thunder’s? Plus, Shaedon Sharpe gets big air

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The Bulls beat the Hawks 152-150 yesterday. That’s 302 combined points. Without overtime. This was the eighth game in league history to feature both teams hitting 150 or more in regulation, according to ESPN Research. The teams combined for 43 3-pointers, 51 made free throws, 80 assists and almost no defense. The Bulls had nine players in double figures. If you’re going to be mediocre or bad, at least be entertaining.

NBA stock report

Fear the Spurs’ D

Every Monday, we walk right into the heart of the NBA trends. We stand around in the middle of the floor, look up at the big screens with lots of numbers in green or red fonts, and then we assess whether teams are headed up or down in the league. Let’s dive into the NBA Stock Market:

📈 Spurs (21-7). Technically, San Antonio is on a six-game win streak, even though we watched it lose a basketball game last week. Why? Because the NBA Cup final does not count for the standings. It’s just an extra game. The Spurs have also won 13 of their last 16, not counting the Cup final. Regardless, it’s not just the fact that they beat the Thunder in the Cup semifinals. This is the best defensive team in the NBA when Wemby is on the floor. We’ve made a massive deal about the Thunder’s defense this season, and rightfully so, with them allowing 103.2 points per 100 possessions. Well, the Spurs with Wemby on the court are allowing just 102.3 points per 100 possessions. The gap between the Thunder and everybody else this season on defense is pretty much historic. Unless one of those other teams has Wemby.

Victor Wembanyama makes the Spurs elite on defense. (Scott Wachter / Imagn Images)

📉 Kings (7-22). Sacramento has lost five of its last six and 17 of its last 21. It’s down to the absolute bottom of the Western Conference. A roster full of scoring options is the second-worst offensive team in the NBA. Some of that is likely Domantas Sabonis being out, because the Kings run so much offense through him. But there’s still too much scoring talent to be this bad offensively. They just can’t seem to play as a unit. They don’t get to the free-throw line. They don’t get a lot of second-chance opportunities. They don’t make shots or shoot enough 3-pointers. But at least they don’t turn the ball over?

📈 Pelicans (7-22). Yes, you’re reading this correctly! The Pelicans are on a heater. After starting 3-22 and looking absolutely hopeless despite two good rookies, the Pels have won four straight. New Orleans is playing good team basketball and looks legitimately improved. Trey Murphy III is on fire. Saddiq Bey has been incredible. Rookies Derik Queen and Jeremiah Fears have been excellent. And Zion Williamson has been coming off the bench to manage his minutes better. I doubt any of this is truly sustainable, but it’s good to see interim coach James Borrego helping get this team more competitive.

📉 Heat (15-14). Remember Miami’s high-powered, fast-paced offense earlier in this season? That has not so much been the case the last couple of weeks. The Heat’s pace has been significantly slower, dropping down roughly four possessions per game and making their attack look a lot more regular. Their offensive rating has plummeted during a stretch in which they’ve gone 1-7. During these last eight games, the Heat have the fifth-worst offense. Their defense has been middle of the road, but they’re not making shots. Their field-goal percentage, 3-point percentage and free-throw percentage are all in the bottom 10 during this scoring drought.

📈 Trail Blazers (12-16). OK, two of their three straight wins happened against Sacramento. So you should probably take this with a grain of salt. But the Blazers have looked a lot better this past week. Not just because of the wins — Deni Avdija, Shaedon Sharpe and Jerami Grant have made up for the point-of-attack presence needed on offense. They’re getting downhill toward the basket. Sharpe’s play has been the most impressive, and it’s a reminder of how tantalizing the 22-year-old’s talent and athleticism are (more on that below). We’re still waiting for the season debut of Scoot Henderson. We’re waiting to see Jrue Holiday get back on the floor. They’ll need those guys in the mix soon because they can’t just keep playing Sacramento.

📉 Warriors (14-15). Golden State struggles so much in close games. Five of the Warriors’ last nine losses have come by five or fewer points. Their defense in clutch situations this season is abysmal — only four teams are worse. This team is highly mediocre, and nowhere near what we saw post-Butler trade last season. In fact, this looks exactly like the team it was a year ago before trading for Butler. I’m not sure the Warriors can trade for a second Butler before the deadline this season.

Here’s a link to the full NBA standings.

The last 24

Goodwill to all, unless you’re a ref

🗣️ Why so mad? NBA coaches are getting ejected and fined a lot right now. Why are refs so quick to react? 

📺 Steve Kerr up close. The Warriors coach gets candid on aging dynasties in this exclusive interview on “The Athletic Show.” You can watch the show on Fire TV and wherever you get your podcasts.

🛳️ Big loss. Ivica Zubac is sidelined from the Clippers with an ankle injury. He’ll miss about 10 games. 

💰 No purchase necessary? Let’s say your team has won the NBA Cup. Are you buying merch? 

🤝 Time to deal? The Knicks are in a great spot right now. Will they make any big trades?

🤏 Small ball. The Raptors have been without Jakob Poeltl for a week. Their smaller lineups aren’t going great. 

🙌 Hall of Fame. Dirk Nowitzki and Sue Bird headline the 2026 FIBA Hall of Fame class. How is Dirk not already in it? 

Stream the NBA on Fubo (try it for free!) and catch out-of-market games on League Pass.

Sharpe-looking dunk

BIDS score for Shaedon’s horizontal slam

Not long ago, Vince Carter went on NBC and unveiled the players he wanted in the dunk contest. He included the obvious choices, but I wonder if the casual NBA fan knew what a no-brainer it was for him to include Sharpe in the group. Sharpe is someone we’ve been begging the NBA to force into the contest. He’s one of the highest-flyers in the game, and he dunks with so much authority.

Sharpe wouldn’t even have to do a lot of tricks or gimmicks. Just jump as high as he can from as far out as he can and bring the Earth to its knees. That’s what happened Saturday when the Blazers took down the Kings. Late in the game, Sharpe pump-faked in the corner, drove baseline and took off with both feet outside the lane.

Russell Westbrook attempted to take a charge, until he realized he was at the wrong eye-level with Sharpe’s body. So he quickly bumped out of the way, as Sharpe went horizontal in the air and brought the hammer down. You already know we need to break out the BIDS (Bounce Index Dunk System) scoring on this.

• Convulsion/jump scare: 10/10. I was watching this game with my family as I’m home for the holidays. I jumped out of the chair when he started to dunk and made an unnatural, loud sound.
• Bench reaction: 8/10. We don’t get a great shot of the players on the bench during the broadcast, but they jumped out of their seats. You can see the Kings’ bench tensing up, though. Donovan Clingan’s primal screen helps a lot.
• Dunker reaction: 10/10. Sharpe screamed while landing. The ball hit off his chin and foot. He watched it roll away and seemed to flex at the ball. Like he was angry at it. That’s a perfect reaction.
• Where is the damn replay? 10/10. We waited less than a minute to get the replay, and it felt like an eternity. You have to hear the great Kevin Calabro give the call for the Blazers. Those were the noises I made.
• Witness protection scale: 9/10. The backpedal from Russ is hilarious. We also have memes based on the Westbrook backpedal,and from Sharpe being airborne.

Total BIDS score for Sharpe: 47/50

NBA history

This Celtic did it all — including the halftime show

Do you know the name Tony Lavelli? If you’re a real sicko Boston Celtics fan and over the age of 70, then you probably remember this guy. Or maybe if you’re a real accordion fan, then you remember the name. On some nights at a Celtics game, you had the two circles form a Venn diagram.

Lavelli played two seasons in the NBA from 1949 to 1951. He played for the Celtics in his first season and then for the Knicks in his second year. On this date in 1949, he dropped 26 points on George Mikan and the Minneapolis Lakers. It was a great performance, but it might not have been his best of the night.

Lavelli wasn’t just a player that night. He was also the halftime show. At the intermission, Lavelli grabbed his accordion and played for the Boston Garden crowd of just over 5,000. It was the first of about a dozen times he played in a game and the halftime show.

He was paid $125 for this, according to NBA.com. To put that into context, the average player salary back then was between $4,000 and $5,000. Let’s just say Lavelli was making 5k that season. That would be the equivalent of Anthony Edwards using his halftime break to play music for the Target Center and then getting paid a little over $1.1 million for it. The NBA was not a serious league until the NBA/ABA merger.

This news was originally published on this post .

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