Even Erik Spoelstra messes up sometimes

PLUS: Klay get burned by Steph (welcome to the club), Joel Embiid is back-ish and the Blazers might win the NBA Cup.

Good morning. This email is heavy in terms of the bytes and whatnot on account of NBA Cup court photos, so you may need to click on the headline to open it in a browser tab or the Substack app if you’re ready in your email inbox. Let’s basketball.

Trompe-l'œil Still Life; Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten; 1664

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Scores

East A

Hornets 89, Magic 114 — Orlando has now won three straight (against some awful teams, mind you) and the offense without Paolo Banchero had performed well for four straight games (against some middling defensive teams, mind you).

Franz Wagner is still not really hitting a lot of threes, but he’s scoring enough to keep Orlando winning.

Anthony Black is getting consistent burn. Things are trending in the right direction.

The Magic’s NBA Cup court:

The theme across the league this year is a lot of teams went with gray. It’s fine, though it’s not quite as “special” as the insanely vivid colors other teams use.

Knicks 111, Sixers 99 — Joel Embiid’s 2024-25 debut: 13 points on 2/11 shooting (8/8 FTs), 3 rebounds, 5 assists in 26 minutes. Not putting this one on the MVP tape. The Sixers were -2 with Embiid and Paul George on the floor together, -7 with just PG, -3 with just Embiid. They need Tyrese Maxey back.

The Sixers’ NBA Cup court:

Simple! Elegant!

East B

Heat 121, Pistons 123 — Erik Spoelstra, acknowledged genius of the coaching ranks, just had maybe the most costly single-play mistake this NBA season. After the Pistons ran a Spoelstrian backdoor cut to get an alley-oop to tie the game, Spoelstra called a timeout with 1.1 seconds remaining.

Unfortunately, the Heat didn’t have any timeouts remaining.