The electric eels of Philadelphia

Tyrese Maxey is scorching and V.J. Edgecombe is shockingly capable. In other news, Victor Wembanyama is torturing people and the Jazz might be halfway decent. Good morning. Let's basketball.

Scores

Cavaliers 116, Pistons 95 – Cade Cunningham has been dreadful to start the season, shooting an eFG of 41% and averaging 5.5 turnovers per game. The Pistons simply don't have enough other offense with Jaden Ivey out to survive that. Meanwhile, Cleveland continues to string together wins without Darius Garland or Max Strus. Barring another major injury, and maybe even in spite of that, the Cavaliers are winning 55 games again.

Magic 124, Sixers 136 – Part of what doomed the Sixers at the start of last season, along with the injuries, was Tyrese Maxey having an ill-timed slump early on. That is absolutely not a problem this year: Maxey looks electric and sometimes unstoppable.

The combination of speed and range is basically unrivaled in the NBA. Through three games he's No. 1 in made threes per game and No. 5 in made free throws per game. That's not likely to last, especially as Joel Embiid acclimates and (eventually?) Paul George returns, and as shooting numbers come back to Earth. But damn is he good.

And he has a fellow electric eel in the backcourt!

V.J. Edgecombe is an absolute live wire and has a much better feel for NBA pace and movement than you'd expect from a rookie with his scouting report coming in. This is an impressive duo, and players like Quentin Grimes and Kelly Oubre are fitting in nicely around them. Here's to hoping Embiid and PG don't end up grinding this down too much. Their additions on defense could be a big boon to keeping Philadelphia near the top of the table.

Orlando finally got an offensive outburst from all three stars (still trash from long distance) ... and couldn't stop either starting guard. What gives? Why is Orlando 15th in defense so far?

Hawks 123, Bulls 128 – Never believe in the Hawks. They can only thrive if no one believes in them. They are now 1-3 after a horrible defensive performance. Chicago plays fast and the Hawks, who played fast last year, just couldn't handle it.

At this time, we are monitoring the 3-0 Chicago Bulls.

Nets 109, Rockets 137 – Uh oh, Sean Marks might have made the Nets too bad. This might be a historically bad team. When you're tanking this hard, you want to be bad for sure, but not so bad you draw undue attention. How do you play the Rockets and only turn them over nine times?

Celtics 122, Pelicans 90 – And Boston is on the board! Zion Williamson sat, the other Pelicans were largely ice cold and Anfernee Simons had a big game for the C's. A visit to Philadelphia on Friday for the NBA Cup opener will be an interesting measuring stick for just how overmatched the Celtics will be this season. Z has a bone contusion in his foot, by the way. No word on whether he'll miss more time.

Raptors 101, Spurs 121 – The schedule has been on the softer side but the Spurs are not only 4-0, but they have the best net rating (+15.6) by a healthy margin. Their offense is not supposed to be this good. But, you know: Victor.

Wembanyama's match-up Jakob Poeltl, a solid starting center: 2 points on 1/6 shooting, 2 rebounds, 4 turnover, 3 fouls in 24 minutes. Our brother was in hell.

Thunder 101, Mavericks 94 – Dallas is pretty convinced that getting Cooper Flagg some point guard reps is the best path forward for the team, because Dereck Lively II missed the game and Jason Kidd decided to start Max Christie instead of D'Angelo Russell. Flagg scored 2 points on 1/9 shooting while fighting off an apparent shoulder injury. Alas.

Dallas did show a ton of spirit and pluck at home, though, staging a rippin' comeback in the fourth. Isaiah Hartenstein ended it.

The Mavericks begin the season with five straight home games. They are now 1-3 with the street clothes squad Pacers visiting next.

Suns 134, Jazz 138 – Has Lauri Markkanen recovered his trade value yet? Perhaps there's a better question: are the Jazz just kinda decent now that they are getting stable guard play from Keyonte George?

Utah is a Domantas Sabonis putback away from 3-0 after beating the no-show Clippers on opening night and the Suns in a nailbiter here. The offense is humming. The bench unit didn't do anything in this particular game, leaving it to Lauri, Key and Walker Kessler. But this could be a Blazers-like modest success story if Utah wants it. (The Jazz owe OKC a pick swap this season, protected in the top eight. Utah would need to finish no better than fourth worst in the league to guarantee they keep the pick, and no better than sixth worst to feel really comfortable going into the lottery.)

Nuggets 124, Timberwolves 111 – Minnesota played hard and well without Anthony Edwards (out at least two weeks with the sore hamstring), but Denver was too much. Jamal Murray was too much.

(This could be the year he gets that All-Star nod. He's off to a very nice start.)

Nikola Jokic is always too much.

Grizzlies 115, Warriors 131 – Golden State looks good if you ignore that weird loss to Portland. The best power ranker in the biz (see the Links below) had them No. 2 in the league before this win! The hot shooting is probably unsustainable, but the defense has underperformed on paper, too. Hmm. This could shake up the broad consensus on how the West looks.

The broad consensus on Draymond Green's antics remains stable.

"What a showman," he wrote seethingly.

Blazers 122, Lakers 108 – L.A. will miss Luka Doncic for a week with his ailments, and the Lakers were on short rest after an intense Sunday night game, and Austin Reaves could only score 41. The Blazers are a weird, weird team.

Links

John Schuhmann's essential Power Rankings.

Mike Finger on how the Spurs planned the perfect tribute to Gregg Popovich.

The league released design peeks of the NBA Cup courts. As always, we need to see the actual courts with bodies running up and down and infinite sponsor logos (digital and physical) to really assess these. I am deeply concerned about Minnesota's court and excited to see if Brooklyn and Memphis translate. The Charlotte court looks beautiful as always. Utah is high-potential, too.

Paul Flannery on the Celtics finding meaning in their sure-to-be-lost season. Plus: here's Flanns' Sunday Shootaround.

Henry Abbott on the deep ties between the NBA and the underbelly of the gambling world. What a line:

I don’t know how Chauncey Billups met figures from the gambling underworld, but it could have happened at almost any NBA arena, even in the owner’s suite.

Danny Chau on whether the NBA has reached the point of no return in its relationship with gambling.

Katie Heindl on who gets to shrug off fault.

Last thing on the gambling scandal: I think Brian Windhorst is asking the right question about why Terry Rozier didn't play again in the 2022-23 season after the game that's been flagged as the one in which he pulled himself early. Maybe Windy got a bit over his skis in suggesting the possibility that the NBA quietly benched him for eight games after sportsbooks flagged the irregularities. We need to know a lot more about how the league came to clear Rozier going into the 2023-24 season.

Fascinating exploration from David Thorpe at TrueHoop on the new way teams are hitting the offensive glass without conceding run-outs. Boxing in!

Josh Gondelman offers a fresh pep talk for Joe Mazzulla.

Tom Haberstroh on what the Clippers aspire to be.

Kelly Dwyer's divisional previews are up: Southeast, Central, Atlantic, Pacific, Southwest, Northwest.

Schedule

Five games on Tuesday, two on Peacock (with the later one on NBC too). Yes, there's an 11 PM Eastern start. All times Eastern.

Sixers at Wizards, 7
Hornets at Heat, 7:30
Knicks at Bucks, 8, Peacock
Kings at Thunder, 8
Clippers at Warriors, 11, Peacock/NBC

Be excellent to each other.