Five NBA Things I may or may not have Liked: Twas the Night of November Tenth
When all watching league pass...
Couldn’t stop specatating the spectacular, not even for an impasse.
November 10th
It’s rare when the stars align, but on Monday, November 10th, the NBA was the best show on television. Six of the nine games that night came down to the wire, and the early slate of games provided instant classic after instant classic.
Portland and Orlando came down to a Desmond Bane buzzer beater, but that was only after a Jerami Grant in-bound’s lob and-one game Portland the lead with ten seconds left.
The Pistons needed a 3-pointer, from a two-wayer, as time expired to send their contest against the Wizards to overtime.
The Heat and Cavaliers game was just batshit crazy from the jump, but overtime went to a whole new level. Donovan Mitchell tied the game at 138 with under a second left in the game on a moonball corner three, only for the Cavaliers to suffer the worst defensive breakdown I’ve ever seen and allow a completely uncontested lob to Andrew Wiggins to lose the game.
The Spurs need a 10-0 run, punctuated by a Victor Wembanyama stepback three to beat the Bulls 121-117.
Cooper Flagg and Giannis Antetokounmpo duked it out down the stretch.
Shit, even the Hawks and Clippers came down to the wire because Vit Krejci has decided he’s the captain now.
I don’t know if November 10, 2025, was the greatest night in NBA history, but it might be the greatest night in League Pass history. If you missed it, I’m sorry, and if you were there, as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons would say, “Oh, what a night.”
PSA: Shot Attempts Are NOT Field Goal Attempts!
I cannot stand how often I will read or hear something to the effect of, “He scored 25 points on 14 shots,” only to see 12 free throw attempts staring back at me in the box score. I know free is in the name, but free throws don’t magically materialize; they’re earned, and the vast majority are generated by attempting a shot. I don’t know why, but this is a big bugaboo of mine: shot attempts are not field goal attempts, even though field goal attempts are shot attempts.
What made me remember just how bad people are about this was Cade Cunningham’s performance against the Wizards. Cunningham scored 46 points on 45 field goal attempts and 18 free throw attempts. All told, he took around 54 shots to generate 46 points, and yet, all I saw was, “Cade Cunningham took 45 shots?!?!?” No, he took far more than that. It’s not that hard to take free throw attempts, cut it in half, and then add it to field goal attempts to get to a rough estimate of how many shots a player took. So, please, for the love of god, stop equating field goal attempts with shot attempts.
Nikola Jokic Appreciation
Nikola Jokic is somehow underrated. He’s already one of the ten best players ever, and he’s on track to join the top five by the time he hangs it up. I don’t think most people would agree with that statement, but that’s on them. He has the highest career PER, Win Shares per 48 minutes, box plus/minus, and offensive box plus/minus in history. His on-court impact is comically great. He has three MVPs. He’s one of four players, along with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, and LeBron James, to lead the league in VORP for five consecutive seasons, and at his current pace, he’ll make it six straight. Yet, he’s making all of that look like child’s play right now. Through 11 games, he is averaging 28.8 points, 10.9 assists, and 13.1 rebounds on a 77.3% True Shooting percentage. He has a box plus/minus of 20.8 and a Win Shares per 48 minutes of .468, which would both absolutely shatter the all-time single records. His peak is one of the best in NBA history, and this season he has pushed even higher. Statistically, Jokic’s only peers are Wilt, Kareem, Jordan, and LeBron. He’s that good. And I’m tired of people pretending like he’s not.
Mo-Town Moment
The Pistons are having their moment. They’re atop the Eastern Conference with a 10-2 record, they’ve won eight straight, and they have the second-ranked defense in the league. Now, I say moment because I don’t think this will last, but moments are what make sports worth watching. The Pistons have spent the better part of the past two decades either sucking or topping out as aggressively mediocre. Now, they’re actually a solidly good team, and I’m sure their fans are losing their collective imaginations over just how far this team can go.
The past few games have been trying; they needed a near buzzer-beater to force overtime against the Wizards, and then they beat the Bulls despite being down four starters. But wins are wins, and banking them now is better than needing them later. Hopefully, the good times keep rolling even when they start winning closer to their underlying level (+5.6 net rating), but winning streaks aren’t meant to be sustainable. That’s what makes them fun.
Clipped
The Clippers were hailed as one of the winners of the offseason. Fresh off a 50-win season that only featured a fully operational Kawhi Leonard for approximately 30 games, the Clippers went out and added Brook Lopez, Chris Paul, Bradley Beal, and John Collins for the cost of a cup of Amir Coffey and Norman Powell. The Clippers might have built the oldest team money could buy, but it was a deep, talented, and experienced side that people believed could challenge at the top of the Western Conference.
Well, 11 games in, the Clippers are 3-8 with a -6.2 net rating, and have seen their defense tumble from third in the league the prior season to 26th. On top of that, Kawhi already has a sprained ankle, and Beal is out for the season after fracturing his hip while Norm Powell, his like-for-like replacement, is lighting it up in Miami to the tune of 24.8 points per game.
To make matters worse, the Clippers will send their draft pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder and are under investigation for salary cap circumvention. There’s enough talent and coaching acumen on this bench to turn things around, but right now, the Clippers are a flat-out bad team. They look old and slow, and those are two things they can’t fix. It’s never a good sign when your head coach is saying, “Shit, I’m upset too.”
For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.