And the Thunder shall inherit the Earth

OKC with a vicious finish in San Francisco. PLUS: when it's dark out you just need to light a little BEAM and Karl-Anthony Towns adds a game winner to the list.

Good morning. It’s a long Monday newsletter, filled with takes and highlights. Click the headline to open it in a browser. Let’s basketball.

"Portrait of a Youth"; Sandro Botticelli; 1480s

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In-Season Tournament Day 4 Recap

East A
Sixers 126, Hawks 116 — De’Anthony Melton, I am so sorry this happened to you and I wish you slipped instead of tripping so that you could blame the In-Season Tournament court.

Joel Embiid with an easy 32-7-8.

The Hawks’ NBA Cup court:

Without the logos and the players, how many guesses would it take to land on this being the Hawks’ court? I think I’d need 25 guesses at minimum. This is a great alternative court for the North Carolina Tar Heels.

Pistons 100, Cavaliers 108 — Defensive rebounding continues to be one of Cleveland’s glaring weaknesses — Detroit rebounded 31% of their own misses, of which there were many. But the Cavaliers survived without Donovan Mitchell. Max Strus has been incredible for the Cavaliers, for what it’s worth.

The Cavaliers’ NBA Cup court:

Very chill. Really nice.

Standings:
Pacers: 2-0
Sixers: 2-1
Cavaliers: 1-1
Hawks: 1-1
Pistons: 0-3 (eliminated)

Pacers can come pretty close to sewing this group up with a win over Atlanta on Tuesday. Sixers-Cavaliers on Tuesday is likely to produce East A’s wild card candidate.

East B
Bucks 130, Hornets 99 — I’ve been interested to see how teams would treat garbage time in group stage games given the tiebreaker implications. Adrian Griffin did clear the bench really late in this game, but the 31-point margin is still plenty.

LaMelo Ball with 37 in the loss. He’s scoring a ton lately. 31 per game over his last seven after a slow start.

Knicks 120, Wizards 99 — I didn’t think the Wizards would be this bad.

Standings
Bucks: 2-0
Heat: 2-0
Knicks: 1-1
Hornets: 1-2
Wizards: 0-3 (eliminated)

Knicks vs. Heat next Friday has major implications. A Miami win sets up a showdown for the group on November 28. If the Knicks beat the Heat, they are set up nicely for the wild card with that blow-out win over Washington plus a game remaining against Charlotte.

East C
Celtics 108, Raptors 105 — Drake hopped on the Raptors broadcast in the fourth quarter. I legitimately chuckled at his feigned confusion at the lack of Nick Nurse and the court change, and then I really laughed when he said Payton Pritchard looks like a crypto scammer.