An offense is emerging. An all-time great is fitting in, not out. And a defensive menace is refusing to flop.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s open up the notebook to run through three NBA trends that have caught my eye over the past week:<\/p>\n
Off-ball Bron<\/p>\n
LeBron James did not dawdle.<\/p>\n
During the second half of a close, intracity rivalry match, he headed from the right corner to the opposite side of the court. This was not a quadragenarian who looked like he had just returned from a sciatica injury. James fully throttled across the paint and headed to his teammate, Gabe Vincent, for whom he would set a screen.<\/p>\n
That screen turned into a nightmare for the LA Clippers.<\/p>\n
With Vincent preparing to flare to the corner, the two defenders in the action, Kobe Brown and John Collins, bungled a switch. All James required was a tiptoe of a step in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n
James pulls off the best of all worlds on this play. He lays a strong screen on Brown. Collins, who is on James, shuffles his feet two inches toward Vincent, moving as if he\u2019s about to switch. Brown doesn\u2019t comply, fighting over the screen. An otherwise microscopic miscommunication is enough to open a lane for the four-time MVP, who receives a dish from Luka Don\u010di\u0107 and finishes an and-1.<\/p>\n
The only time 40-year-olds are supposed to cover this much ground is when they\u2019re on lawnmowers.<\/p>\n
James has played three games since returning from injury. The Los Angeles Lakers have won each one. The team is off to a roaring start, 13-4 and second in the Western Conference, thanks to its relentless backcourt of Don\u010di\u0107 and Austin Reaves, a career-best start from Rui Hachimura and can\u2019t-miss mid-range shooting, including from Deandre Ayton, who has performed well to begin his Lakers career.<\/p>\n
Enter: One of the top two players ever to touch a basketball.<\/p>\n
James has looked slick to start, most recently going for a typical 25 points, six rebounds and six assists against the Clippers. After all the debate over fitting in versus fitting out, James is playing his role. But it\u2019s one he\u2019s never executed to this extreme.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s still early, and thus, any sort of adjustment remains on the table, but James has not operated in his point guard-ish style during these three games. Instead, he\u2019s been an off-ball fiend. The Lakers have used pick-and-rolls with Don\u010di\u0107 or Reaves to get him post-ups. He threw some snazzy dimes from there during his first game back. He\u2019s scoring off the catch often.<\/p>\n
Even during the Clippers game, James\u2019 best-scoring performance so far, his buckets were more because of activity and less because the ball just so happened to be in his hands. He took 15 shots in that game and never took more than two dribbles to get into any of them. Six attempts were off the catch, such as on a number of his 3-pointers or on that slicing and-1 above. Five were after just one dribble.<\/p>\n
The Lakers have leaned on two elite creators \u2014 a duo of Don\u010di\u0107 and Reaves, who combine for 63 points, 16 assists and 22 free-throw attempts per game \u2014 and turned James into a dangerous off-ball weapon.<\/p>\n
James has always been a dominant cutter and screener. His days alongside Dwyane Wade in Miami overflowed with gorgeous movement. But now, cuts seem to be his new foundation.<\/p>\n
For example, since Second Spectrum started tracking this data in 2013, James has never averaged fewer than 3.5 dribbles leading into his shots over a full season. In 2024-25, he averaged 3.8. During these last three games, he\u2019s averaged 1.5.<\/p>\n
Only 41 percent of his 2-pointers have been self-created during this time. In every other year of his career, that number has fallen between 56 and 77 percent.<\/p>\n
Defenses already can\u2019t take breaks against the Lakers. At any given moment, they have a 30-ish point scorer running the attack. But this team can become even more unforgiving.<\/p>\n
So far, Los Angeles hasn\u2019t shot well from deep. Only Hachimura is hitting better than 35 percent of his 3-point attempts. That will change. In the meantime, the Lakers have blitzed opponents from mid-range.<\/p>\n
Now, the man who is at worst the second-best player ever is the third ballhandler on his own team. James could lament about no longer being \u201cthe guy.\u201d That title belongs to Don\u010di\u0107, as the Lakers have made clear. But instead of dealing with drama, they are winning. James appears to have bought into his role. And what was already an exhausting attack just became even more draining to face.<\/p>\n
Magical beatdowns<\/p>\n
A couple of weeks ago, with a team many predicted to finish inside the Eastern Conference\u2019s top three, disappointing to begin the season, All-Star forward Paolo Banchero sat at his cubby in the visiting locker room of Madison Square Garden. The Orlando Magic had just beaten the New York Knicks in a fashion reminiscent of their physicality from the previous few years.<\/p>\n
The Magic were regaining form. And on this night, a 17-point victory during which they lost Banchero to a groin injury that has kept him off the court since, what was supposed to be a brute squad looked brute again.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lost that a little bit,\u201d Banchero told me then. \u201cIt started off rough. We weren\u2019t guarding teams like we usually do. And we kinda had to look ourselves in the mirror and realize, we\u2019re not gonna win many games giving up 130, 120.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Magic had misplaced their identity. Now, they\u2019ve found one, though not in the way many might have predicted.<\/p>\n
Orlando demolished the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday, 144-103, its 10th win in 14 games. It is 5-2 without Banchero. Head coach Jamahl Mosley\u2019s plea to defend more urgently in transition is coming to fruition. The group is smashing smaller opponents on the boards. Jalen Suggs, who\u2019s never dull but often banged up, is playing more minutes now, which has helped garner stops on the perimeter.<\/p>\n
But that addresses only the team\u2019s usual calling card, the defense. For the first time in years, offense is coming plentifully in Orlando. And it\u2019s happening in an in-character way.<\/p>\n
The Magic are bashing defenses into buckets.<\/p>\n
Over this 14-game heater, Orlando is scoring 121.0 points per 100 possessions, fourth in the NBA during the month-long stretch. The last time the Magic finished in the top half of the league in offense, Dwight Howard was their starting center. Maybe a decade-and-a-half slump will finally bust.<\/p>\n
The attack includes movement it didn\u2019t rely on as heavily last season. The addition of Desmond Bane means more cutting, split actions and perimeter players screening for each other. But Orlando still boasts its biggest flaw: It can\u2019t shoot.<\/p>\n
The 3-point production has improved from last season. Bane makes a difference. Suggs, Franz Wagner and Anthony Black have hit jumpers often enough to make defenses think. Wendell Carter Jr. has doubled (for real, doubled) his percentage from deep. Tristan Da Silva is sneakily one of the league\u2019s most important role players in part because of his knockdown 3 ball. Yet, Orlando remains a top-tier clanky squad.<\/p>\n
The Magic are scoring but for more on-brand reasons. Just as they do on defense, they\u2019re pounding opponents down low.<\/p>\n
No one attacks the hoop with more ferocity than the Magic does.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s use Wagner, who could be on the way to his first All-Star appearance, as an example. Some physical drivers start from a standstill in the half court \u2014 and then there\u2019s what Wagner does.<\/p>\n
The Magic spent training camp concentrating on speed. Their focus? Running after only steals and long rebounds would not suffice. Now, they get into transition nearly one in every five possessions, the second-highest frequency in the league, according to Cleaning the Glass.<\/p>\n
At times, they\u2019ll turn plays that never should have been fast breaks, ones that follow boring defensive boards or even made shots, into transition opportunities. This is the Wagner special. He mixes together straight-line speed, pace and crafty touch around the basket, then adds in a lowered shoulder just for fun.<\/p>\n
Look at where each player is positioned when Wagner retrieves the rebound in the play below. Four Brooklyn Nets are already getting back on defense, ahead of all five Magic players. That doesn\u2019t stop Wagner from moving with purpose, then projecting himself into Noah Clowney for a foul.<\/p>\n
The Magic draw fouls on a higher percentage of their drives than any other team, according to Second Spectrum. They average the most free throws per field-goal attempt in the league.<\/p>\n
Orlando is fast. And now, it bruises opponents on both sides of the court.<\/p>\n
Toumani Camara\u2019s anti-flop<\/p>\n
In a league where even the slightest contact causes most players to collapse as if they\u2019d been hit by Ray Lewis, Toumani Camara needs not touch the ground.<\/p>\n
Coming into this season, Camara was already the best in the NBA at forcing illegal screens. He\u2019s doing it even more to begin this year. And he\u2019s remaining on his feet in the process.<\/p>\n
The Portland Trail Blazers\u2019 all-defensive wing pursues screens aggressively. If he figures a player is about to move, he beelines into the guy. But for the first time, a foul-drawing hound cannot be accused of disintegrating just to sell calls.<\/p>\n
Over the last three weeks, Camara has drawn nine illegal screens and has fallen on only one of them.<\/p>\n
He has perfected the lean. He\u2019ll angle backwards and extend an arm at an awkward position, as if he were playing some mishmash of Twister and limbo.<\/p>\n
Camara\u2019s screen defense (along with his prolific charge-taking) could become an under-the-radar storyline in the basketball geek world. He led the league last season, drawing 91 offensive fouls. This season, he\u2019s pacing to shatter that: 129, which would demolish the single-season record. Since the NBA began tracking this stat in 1999, no one has gotten into triple digits.<\/p>\n
Camara could be the first one. And if he does, it won\u2019t be because of unimaginative flops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An offense is emerging. An all-time great is fitting in, not out. And a defensive menace is refusing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[1055,355,11950,6406,99],"class_list":["post-318674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-nba","tag-orlando-magic","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}