Minnesota's defensive effort in Game 2 was a transformative sight. In what appeared to be an effort to become one with their team name, they swarmed, smashed, hounded, snarled, took, and destroyed for 24 straight minutes to start the game. Not an inch of the court was safe. Read more »

The Celtics finished in the top spot in Net Rating for the second straight season, while the Thunder jumped up from 28th to 14th to second. Read more »

Some names are bigger than others, but from Jaylen Brown and Luka Doncic to Donte DiVincenzo and Chet Holmgren, here are the 10 biggest playoff X-factors. Read more »

Despite the injury to Karl-Anthony Towns and their looming salary cap concerns, Anthony Edwards has crystalized this season that the Wolves have the most valuable and rare thing in the NBA. Read more »

Ricky Rubio seemed, as the passage of time compresses the finer details, like he was always peaking brilliantly or in the midst of a lull from which he might never emerge, but he was also a consistent presence. Read more »

We've ranked every team's wing corps from 1 to 30 based on the top three wings' production, upside and versatility. Read more »

The Celtics finished first in Net Rating ahead of the Cavaliers, who jumped up from 13th last season and 28th as recently as 2021. Read more »

Klay Thompson embodies both the zombie-like malaise of the Warriors, and that of the league in general as we end another long season in its most laborious, most unstable era ever. On the opposite end is probably the most-disliked person in the modern NBA, who ended his regular season with maximum indignity. Read more »

Walker Kessler was thrown into the Rudy Gobert trade and has emerged as a shot-blocking force for the Jazz. Meanwhile, Gobert has become the avatar for Minnesota's disappointing season. Read more »

The Sixers recently tried and failed a Twin Towers experiment, but were able to quickly dig themselves out of the hole. With the Wolves trading away all of their future draft capital, fixing their Gobert/Towns mix will be even more challenging for them. Read more »

As a collision between a movie production and the roving entertainment complex that is the contemporary NBA, Hustle is a decidedly post-modern product, existing somewhere between advertisement for the league and true cinema. Read more »

Adam Silver and the NBA would likely prefer to take what happened in Minneapolis and bottle, mass-produce, and sell it as their mini version Read more »

The Suns jumped from 30th in the NBA in Net Rating in 17-18 to 29th to 18th in 19-20 to third last season and first in 21-22. Read more »

Karl-Anthony Towns' relative loss in prestige over the last few seasons speaks to how much context can shape how one is perceived, even at the expense of one's on-court performance. Read more »

The guys that go into the Hall of Fame precede the current crop of players by a generation or several and their accomplishments have begun to acquire the smell of warehoused memorabilia. Read more »

The Jazz jumped from ninth in Net Rating last season to first in 20-21. Read more »

The timing is odd but Gersson Rosas probably actually wanted Chris Finch instead of Ryan Saunders all along and now they half a weird season left to start figuring out what's next. Read more »