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🎶🎶 The ball is tipped. And there you are. You’re running for your life. You’re a shooting star. And all the years. No one knows. Just how hard you worked. But now it shows. In one shining moment, it’s all on the line. One shining moment, there frozen in time! 🎶🎶
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About last night
Hail to the Victors
It was an ugly, defensive-minded, missed shot-riddled men’s national championship game, but I’m not sure Michigan coach Dusty May would have had it any other way. The Wolverines beat the Connecticut Huskies 69-63 to win their first national title since Glen Rice, Loy Vaught, Terry Mills and Rumeal Robinson topped Seton Hall in 1989. Michigan held UConn to 32 percent from the field, and even though the box score says the Wolverines had six blocks, it felt like a lot more.
UConn tried to make another big comeback like we saw against Duke in the Elite Eight, but it just couldn’t bury enough shots. It wasn’t all that pretty for the Wolverines on offense, either, as they made just 38 percent of their shots. But they were clutch at the line, going 25-of-28. Elliot Cadeau led everybody with 19 points and was named Most Outstanding Player. Time to start obsessing over the transfer portal! What a season!
And from the NBA’s night of games!
Knicks 108, Hawks 105: The Hawks did a great job bottling up Jalen Brunson … for 42 minutes. He had 13 points with six minutes left. Then he turned it up and finished with 30 to lead the Knicks to the victory. Brunson also had 13 assists to go with his late scoring barrage. Karl-Anthony Towns had a big game with 21 points, 12 rebounds and six assists. Nickeil Alexander-Walker had 32 points (including this spectacular bucket), but it wasn’t enough. CJ McCollum hit a shot beyond half court that would have tied it, but he got it off just after the buzzer.
Magic 123, Pistons 107: The Magic badly needed this win, and Paolo Banchero got it for them. He had 31 points, Desmond Bane had 25 and Jalen Suggs put up 12 points and 12 assists to light up a great Pistons defense. Orlando (43-36) has the same record as Charlotte and Philadelphia but is the ninth seed in the East because of tiebreakers.
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Spurs 115, 76ers 102: Victor Wembanyama left the game with a rib contusion after 16 minutes but only needs to play (20 minutes or more) in two of the final three games to be award eligible, thanks to the NBA Cup final. Joel Embiid had 34 points, but Stephon Castle’s 19 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds were enough to make up for Wemby’s exit. Wemby had 17 points and three blocks in his time on the court.
Nuggets 137, Blazers 132 (OT): The Nuggets were down 17 in the fourth quarter and stormed back to force overtime. That’s when Jamal Murray took over to score seven of his 20 points. Nikola Jokić had 35 points, 14 rebounds, 13 assists, six turnovers and five steals. Denver (51-28) moved to third place in the West.
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And let’s head to the Dunk Tank!
Cavs 142, Grizzlies 126: No Donovan Mitchell. No James Harden. No problem. Evan Mobley had 24, and Dennis Schröder put up 22 points and 11 assists. Tank score for Memphis is 8/10.
The last 24
📈 Power Rankings! Law Murray checks in on some first-week predictions. Plus, the Nuggets are contenders again.
🏀 Surprising hire! Many thought Billy Donovan would be at the top of North Carolina’s coaching list. The Tar Heels just hired former Nuggets coach Michael Malone.
🤝 Another one gone. The Chicago Sky can’t keep any stars. They just traded Angel Reese to Atlanta.
🏀 Technically clean. Mike Conley has never been called for a technical foul in 1,224 career games. He explains why in this first-person piece.
🏀 Wait ’til next year. Now that the men’s college hoops season is over, it’s time for CJ Moore’s early Top 25 for 2026-27. The transfer portal makes this impossible, of course, but it’s still fun!
Stream the NBA on Fubo (try it for free!) and catch out-of-market games on League Pass.
Chicago Fire’d
Bulls dismiss front office. What’s next?
Around the same time Malone took the UNC job yesterday, the Bulls announced they were cleaning house in their front office. The franchise fired vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley. Karnisovas and Eversley were hired in 2020. During their time, the Bulls went 224-254, had just one winning season and made the playoffs once.
This was the statement from Bulls CEO Michael Reinsdorf about the firings.
“We have not had the success our fans deserve, and it’s my responsibility to go in a new direction. This move is about positioning our team for sustained success moving ahead.”
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I’ve long contended this is an ownership problem as much as it’s anything else in Chicago. Other than having the greatest player of all time from 1984 to 1998 and then a brief period with a healthy Derrick Rose, this organization has been mediocre at best. It’s one of the least inspiring franchises year after year. So an overhaul was needed with the front office, but it won’t truly make a difference unless ownership gets out of the way.
The Bulls have set themselves up for a solid reset. The only long-term money they have dedicated is Josh Giddey ($75 million over the next three years) and Patrick Williams ($54 million over the next three, but the last one is a player option). So this roster has a lot of flexibility moving forward. Chicago just needs the right eye to win in the margins and on big swings with acquiring talent.
Between Giddey, Matas Buzelis and maybe Noa Essengue, there’s a nucleus for a potential youth movement/rebuild. But the Bulls don’t have a definite cornerstone to build around. There’s a decent chance to grab one of those guys in the upcoming draft. They’re currently slotted for ninth before any lottery movement. That gives them a 20.3 percent chance at a top-four pick.
It sounds like the team wants to keep Billy Donovan as the coach regardless of the front-office hires. So as long as he doesn’t try to bolt for somewhere else and they can get everything lined up, the Bulls are in a position to build something meaningful. They just need ownership to hire the right people and get out of the way.
Yesterday’s decision was the easy part, Jon Greenberg writes.
Leaders check-in
Should totals matter more than averages?
We’ve dipped our toes into this before, but I’m always curious about weighing averages against total numbers in NBA statistics. The NBA is the only professional sport that goes off averages as a measurement of being a leader. Baseball is all about total, raw numbers when it comes to home runs, runs batted in, runs scored, strikeouts, walks and so much more. Of course, it has batting averages and OPS and other measurables, but those are similar to shooting percentage and true shooting percentage in basketball.
The NFL will occasionally mention how many yards per game a player is running for or throwing for, but for the most part it deals in total yardage with its main offensive categories. Nobody is ever saying, “this edge rusher is averaging 1.4 sacks per game this season.” NFL numbers probably resemble NBA numbers the most, since you’re often dealing with stats in the thousands.
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We have less than a week left in the regular season, so I wanted to check in on the statistical races and leaders. I also wonder how different it would look based on totals versus averages. I’m writing this before I even look up the leaders, so there’s a decent chance this becomes a completely pointless exercise. I will leave this section in, regardless.
Scoring title:
- Scoring average leaders: 1. Luka Dončić (33.5), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (31.4), 3. Anthony Edwards (28.9), 4. Jaylen Brown (28.7), 5. Tyrese Maxey (28.6)
- Total points leader: 1. Dončić (2,143), 2. SGA (2,072), 3. Brown (1,980), 4. Kevin Durant (1,940), 5. Mitchell (1,921)
SGA will absolutely surpass the injured Dončić in total points, but Luka will be considered the scoring champ because the NBA goes by average.
Rebounding title:
- Rebounding average leaders: 1. Jokić (12.9), Karl-Anthony Towns (11.9), 3. Donovan Clingan (11.6), 4. Victor Wembanyama (11.5), 5. Rudy Gobert (11.5)
- Total rebounds leader: 1. Towns (867), 2. Gobert (860), 3. Clingan (858), 4. Jokić (812), 5. Wembanyama (723)
Jokić missed a month in the middle of the season, so he’s not close to the leader in total rebounds. But he’s leading in average! Towns might be the actual rebounding king this year considering he’s second in average and first in total.
Assists title:
- Assists average leaders: 1. Jokić (10.9), Cade Cunningham (9.9), 3. Giddey (9.1), 4. Dončić (8.3), 5. Harden (8.1)
- Total assists leader: 1. Jokić (686), 2. Cunningham (603), 3. Jalen Johnson (558), 4. Harden (548), 5. Dončić (530), 5. Murray (530)
Jokić has the legitimate claim to both tallies here. Nobody is catching him in either. It makes him the first player to lead the league in rebounding and assists averages. Only one player has ever led in total rebounds and total assists in the same season. That was Wilt Chamberlain in 1968.
Blocks title:
- Blocks average leaders: 1. Wembanyama (3.1), Chet Holmgren (1.9), 3. Jay Huff (1.8), 4. Mobley (1.7), 5. Clingan (1.7)
- Total blocks leader: 1. Wembanyama (195), 2. Huff (140), 3. Holmgren (125), 4. Clingan (124), 5. Gobert (122)
Wemby is running away with this, as you’d expect him to until he retires. Look at Huff’s shot-blocking this season, though! Not bad for a guy who plays 20.8 minutes per game.
Steals title:
- Steals average leaders: 1. Ausar Thompson (2.0), Cason Wallace (2.0), 3. Dyson Daniels (2.0), 4. Kawhi Leonard (1.9), 5. Maxey (1.9)
- Total steals leader: 1. Wallace (147), 2. Daniels (145), 3. Ausar (140), 4. Dunn (127), 4. Maxey (127)
This one is neck-and-neck. Wallace and Daniels are most likely the guys fighting to be the steals king for the rest of this season.