San Antonio<\/a> are the others) yet to have a losing streak of more than two games. They don\u2019t get blown out; they have a league-low three losses by 10 points or more. They\u2019re a league-best 17-6 against teams who were at .500 or better.<\/p>\nPlayoff basketball awaits in Detroit, and for the first time since 2008 there should be a Game 1 of a postseason series at home for the Pistons. Plenty of other teams \u2014 the Thunder, Boston, New York, San Antonio, Denver, Houston, Cleveland \u2014 are probably safe to call playoff locks at this point as well.<\/p>\n
The next two months will tell the tale of which teams find their way either into Round 1 or will be trying to land the No. 1 draft pick instead.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been hard. It\u2019s been a long journey so far, but just going to work every day, finding ways to connect with my teammates, connect with the city the best I can, and bring wins to the city,\u201d Cunningham said. \u201cThat\u2019s what the city respects and loves is people that go out there and compete every day. There were times they didn\u2019t like how we played. We figured it out, and now we have something going, something building. Just have to keep going now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The realistic contenders<\/p>\n
The top five teams in the NBA record-wise right now: Detroit, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Boston, Denver and New York (the Nuggets and Knicks are tied).<\/p>\n
Expect one of those clubs as the champion in June.<\/p>\n
Granted, in the early days the league had far fewer teams than it does now. But there have been only four instances of the eventual NBA Finals winner not being among the league\u2019s top-five teams record-wise at the All-Star break.<\/p>\n
Milwaukee was seventh at the break in the coronavirus-affected 2020-21 season. Detroit was seventh at the break in 2003-04, Houston was ninth at the break in 1994-95 and Washington was eighth in 1977-78.<\/p>\n
The scoring race<\/p>\n
It looks like a two-person race for the scoring title: the Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 Luka Doncic and Oklahoma City\u2019s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.<\/p>\n
Doncic is averaging 32.8 points, Gilgeous-Alexander \u2014 the reigning champion \u2014 is averaging 31.8.<\/p>\n
Doncic won the scoring race in 2023-24; Gilgeous-Alexander could become the 14th player in NBA history to win the title in consecutive seasons.<\/p>\n
Award possibilities<\/p>\n
Boston\u2019s Jayson Tatum and Indiana\u2019s Tyrese Haliburton \u2014 All-NBA picks last season \u2014 were going to be out of the awards mix this season because of their Achilles tendon tears suffered in last season\u2019s playoffs, so it was clear from the outset of this season that the group of award winners this spring would be different.<\/p>\n
Turns out, it\u2019s going to be very different.<\/p>\n
Because of the 65-game rule for eligibility for most player awards, the Lakers\u2019 LeBron James is going to see his 21-year streak of making the All-NBA team end. He\u2019s one of five All-NBA picks from last season who are assured of not making the team this year, joining Tatum, Haliburton, Milwaukee\u2019s Giannis Antetokounmpo and Oklahoma City\u2019s Jalen Williams.<\/p>\n
On the brink of joining that list: Denver\u2019s Nikola Jokic and Golden State\u2019s Stephen Curry, who basically can miss one more game the rest of the way to preserve their award eligibility.<\/p>\n
Cleveland\u2019s Evan Mobley \u2014 second-team All-NBA last season \u2014 has been inactive 13 times this year, so he doesn\u2019t have a lot of missed-time wiggle room down the stretch of the season. The Lakers\u2019 Austin Reaves, Washington\u2019s Anthony Davis and Memphis\u2019 Ja Morant are all well past the cutoff for eligibility as well.<\/p>\n
Others who are close to missing too much time for an All-NBA shot: Doncic, San Antonio\u2019s Victor Wembanyama, the Los Angeles Clippers\u2019 Kawhi Leonard, Utah\u2019s Lauri Markkanen and Phoenix\u2019s Devin Booker.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\nCopyright
\n \u00a9\u00a02026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Pistons had the worst record in franchise history at the All-Star break four years ago. And…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-486053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}