NBA Game Notes: Contenders serve notice

Notes from: CLE-DEN, NOP-PHX, MEM-SAC and GSW-HOU

Thursday night was a statement night for several contenders. The Mavericks, Thunder and Knicks all served up blowouts. The Cavaliers, Grizzlies and Warriors all pulled out really good home victories.

Here’s what I saw on Thursday!

Denver Nuggets - 114 at Cleveland Cavaliers - 126

• Cleveland built a sizable lead, Denver cut into it, but the Cavs were never really all that threatened. One of Cleveland’s best traits this season has been having answers for opponent runs. Because Kenny Atkinson has almost always kept one of his guards (Donovan Mitchell or Darius Garland) and one of his bigs (Evan Mobley or Jarrett Allen) on the floor at all times, it’s pretty rare that the Cavs aren’t able to counter a push by the opponent.

• The Cavaliers big men did a good job of moving the ball, as Jarrett Allen and Mobley combined for 10 assists. They also did a good job setting each other up too.

  The first clip is Mobley doing a nice job finding Allen for the alley-oop in transition. Then Allen had a simple kickout pass to Mobley, who let the three fly without hesitation. Lastly is some really good interior big-to-big passing work from the duo.

• This was a really good game for Caris LeVert. He came out firing from the moment he got in the game. LeVert can change games for Cleveland and is a really good fit in their guard/wing rotation.

• More than half of the Cavs shots came from behind the arc in this one. Their three-point attempt rate has been nudging up over the past couple of weeks.

• On the other side…Denver doesn’t get up nearly enough threes. Only one-quarter of their shots were threes in this game. That was below their season average of about 35%, which is last in the NBA.

  In this one, the Cavaliers held a 66 to 18 advantage in points from three-pointers. That’s a margin that is extremely difficult to overcome.

  The Nuggets have enough good shooters that they should be taking more threes on a regular basis.

• Denver is now 11-9 on the season. Nikola Jokic has been great, but the Nuggets need more than just Jokic to win games. A quarter of the season has passed now. It’s fair to question Denver’s issues as more than just a slow start.

Houston Rockets - 93 at Golden State Warriors - 99

• This was a great win for the Warriors. The Rockets are good. Golden State was without Stephen Curry and Draymond Green. And the Dubs needed a win, after coming in on five consecutive losses.

• Jonathan Kuminga was incredible in this game. He started hot and then put the game away. Kuminga scored in every possible way too. His best game of the season so far, and it’s not even close.

  To open the scoring, Kuminga did a nice job getting into the paint for the short fallaway. In the second clip, Kuminga gets downhill, creates contact and that helps open his floater. Then, to seal the game, Kuminga had a really strong finish over two of the Rockets best defenders. Bonus: Look at how fired up Draymond Green and Stephen Curry are for Kuminga.

• Andrew Wiggins played really well in this one too. Warriors need to keep him consistently on track. This was a big one for Wiggins, especially with Stephen Curry and Draymond Green out.

• Ime Udoka could, and probably should, have gone away from Jalen Green in this game. He couldn’t make shots and wasn’t defending all that well. More minutes for Amen Thompson and/or Reed Sheppard would have been nice here.

• Rockets offense is still pretty clunky sometimes. If there’s a trade to be made, it should be with upgrading the offense in mind. Houston can send out up to $40.8 million in expiring salary without touching a single core rotation player. That’s huge.