What to watch this week in NBA: Trae Young in New York, Mavs-Thunder, rolling Rockets

That buzzer you hear signals the end of the first quarter of this NBA season. Cue the concessions, the dance cam, the trampolining victory frog.

Some developments make sense — the Boston Celtics and Oklahoma City Thunder look dominant, and Nikola Jokić is putting up another MVP-caliber season. Others are stunning or a bit fluky, depending on your vantage point — the Memphis Grizzlies and Houston Rockets are surging, the Philadelphia 76ers are a disaster, and RJ Barrett is averaging more points per game than Steph Curry and LeBron James.

This week features the home stretch of the NBA Cup, headlined by some colorful matchups. Trae Young is back in Madison Square Garden (more on that in our “wildest moment” below), Luka Dončić squares off with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and the ever-resilient Orlando Magic get a chance to prove their mettle in primetime. Here’s your watch guide to the week ahead in professional basketball.

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Full NBA national TV schedule

For games Dec. 9-14 | All times Eastern | * denotes NBA Cup game

Orlando Magic at Milwaukee Bucks

Time: Tuesday, 7 p.m. ET
TV: TNT

The good: Giannis Antetokounmpo has reached a dizzying new level on the offensive end. Was that even possible? Milwaukee’s mega-star is averaging a league-best and career-best 32.5 points per game, on better than 61 percent from the field. The Bucks’ offense is looking good after its dystopian start — up to 11th in offensive rating, eighth in field goal percentage and third in 3-point shooting. Damian Lillard is back to balling. Taurean Prince is lights out from beyond the arc. And Khris Middleton has finally returned from ankle surgery.

Orlando’s defense, meanwhile, can grind. It is third in defensive rating and deflections per game. Three perimeter guys average at least 1.5 steals, while Goga Bitadze is shattering his career marks in boards and blocks. Jamahl Mosley deserves Coach of the Year consideration, with this team third in the East at 17-9 despite a litany of injuries.

The bad: Can Orlando hit pause, go into the game menu and turn off injuries? The Magic looked inspired, selfless and resilient, with Paolo Banchero shelved indefinitely due to an oblique injury. For their troubles, ascending star Franz Wagner incurred the exact same injury as Banchero. That stinks, no doubt about it. Hamstring issues have hindered fellow Magicians Jonathan Isaac and Gary Harris. Perhaps Moe Wagner will step up mightily for his fallen brother — he’s averaging 23.9 points and 10 rebounds per 36 minutes. And Jalen Suggs has always struggled with efficiency, but he’s putting up career-high marks in every major category except assists.

The weird: Though the Bucks’ 2-8 start feels like eons ago, this team is still a work in progress, especially as Middleton comes back into the fold. Milwaukee figures to be active in the trade market — happy December 15th to all who observe — and they’re undoubtedly in win-now mode, with five of their top seven rotation guys age 30 or older. And one more time for the folks in the back: Prince leads the NBA in 3-point percentage. Weird indeed.

Best players to wear both jerseys (minimum 50 games with each franchise):

• G — Michael Carter-Williams
• G — Jerry Reynolds
• F — Tobias Harris
• F — Drew Gooden
• C — Zaza Pachulia

Time: Tuesday, 9:30 p.m. ET
TV: TNT

The good: There’s a whole lot of good here. As noted on The Athletic’s NBA Daily podcast, this Thunder squad is historically good on steals and deflections. Oklahoma City is first in defensive rating and net rating. Its top three scorers — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Isaiah Hartenstein — each make more than half their shots. The Thunder lead the Western Conference and sit second in title odds at +450 on BetMGM.

On the other end, Dallas has the league’s longest current win streak at seven games. They stayed afloat with Luka Dončić out. Kyrie Irving has a career-best effective shooting percentage and is a few free throw ticks away from a 50/40/90 season. And they’re getting real solid production from the center spot. Dereck Lively II is putting up 11.6 rebounds and 2.5 stuffs per 36 minutes, while Daniel Gafford has the best field goal percentage in the league. Dončić is synonymous with heliocentric offense, but this year, Dallas is fifth in clutch minutes assist rate and ninth in total turnover percentage.

The bad: Klay Thompson has slumped to his worst-ever shooting splits. He’s below 37 percent from the field in his last 10 games. It’s not all bad — Thompson is also fourth in plus-minus across that stretch — but the Mavs will need much more from him as the season wears on.

The weird: Dončić’s defensive win share mark is drawing even with the likes of Luguentz Dort, Amen Thompson and Jaren Jackson Jr. Kinda wild for a guy routinely subjected to “bad defense” clip compilations.

Buzzer beaters: So far, there’s only been one in this head-to-head series — Kevin Durant hit a 28-footer to walk it off on December 29th, 2011.

Time: Wednesday, 7 p.m. ET
TV: ESPN

The good: These Knicks can hoop with the best of them. They are first in offensive rating and seventh in points per game despite playing with one of the NBA’s slowest paces. All five starters average at least 14 points per game, and both Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns are topping 25. Among two-man duos that have played at least 10 games together, Brunson and Cameron Payne are fourth in all of basketball for offensive rating. And OG Anunoby is shining in New York. He’s still an absolute terror in passing lanes — coming into the week with consecutive four-steal games — but now teases heat-check potential when the Knicks need another option.

The Hawks are a lot of fun right now. They play with the league’s third-fastest pace. They beat the East’s most formidable teams, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston, to win their stacked in-season tournament group. And “The Great Barrier Thief” is the best nickname in basketball: Dyson Daniels looks like an ideal backcourt pairing for Trae Young, covering for the latter’s defensive deficiencies with a league-leading 3.2 swipes per game. Young has had an off year shooting the ball but is on pace to average the most assists since John Stockton in 1994-95.

The bad: New York continues to drop winnable games. They’ve lost to the Detroit Pistons, Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers and Utah Jazz, and are third-worst in defending shots from 20 to 24 feet. The defense has looked a step off all year as it integrates Towns and Mikal Bridges. And we’re all quite familiar with this refrain, but Tom Thibodeau is once again squeezing as much as he can from the Knicks’ starting five. Getting Precious Achiuwa back from a hamstring injury should lengthen the rotation, and Mitchell Robinson’s eventual return will help as well. But it’s fair to be worried about the workload here.

The weird: Is Zaccharie Risacher the least-talked-about top pick in modern history? Anthony Bennett is surely in that conversation, but at least he earned ignominy and was a central piece of the trade that brought Kevin Love to Cleveland. Risacher is just … there. He’s only 19 years old and has put up double-digit scoring in his last seven games. In The Athletic’s first edition of rookie rankings, Risacher slotted in at No. 6. Adding to the weirdness is that he has had one eye-popping game this year … yup, against these Knicks! He put up 33 points, seven rebounds, three steals and two blocks in a win over New York on November 6th.

Wildest moment: What else could it be? May 23rd, 2021: Trae Young hit the game-winning floater with less than one second to play, spoiling New York’s first playoff game in almost a decade. A Reggie Miller-esque villain was thus born at Madison Square Garden. From The New York Times’ Sopan Deb: “Young then added insult to injury by using his finger to shush the crowd, a good portion of which had been sending profane chants his way for much of the game.”

Time: Wednesday, 9:30 p.m. ET
TV: TNT

The good: Houston’s defense is good. Very, very good. Ime Udoka has molded this group in his likeness, and the results are inspiring — second in defensive rating, third in scoring defense, fifth in opponent 3-point percentage, sixth in blocks per game. The addition of Dillon Brooks has also helped transform these Rockets into professional irritants. Other than the injured Chet Holmgren and the MVP-level Gilgeous-Alexander, Brooks has the most defensive win shares of all players with at least 10 games played. Fred VanVleet is close behind him, while Tari Eason averages more than two steals a game in under 23 minutes.

Golden State notched two of its more inspiring wins last week. They beat these Rockets without Steph Curry, holding Houston to an unsightly 37.6 shooting percentage and handily winning the defensive rebounding margin. Curry returned to the lineup on Sunday and dropped 30 points to beat Minnesota. Jonathan Kuminga has at least 19 points off the bench in four of his last six outings. He is emerging as the team’s true second option, as outlined by The Athletic’s Marcus Thompson II this weekend.

The bad: The Warriors won 12 of their first 15 games but have since gone 2-6. Injuries have played a part in this decline, and perhaps starting Kuminga over Draymond Green will be a galvanizer. Meanwhile, the Rockets are 27th in team shooting percentage and 28th in assists per game. This defense is good enough to buoy Houston into the top of the West, but the offense has to be better to mount a real run. Both VanVleet and Jalen Green are below 40 percent from the floor.

The weird: Did you realize that Jeff Green is on the Rockets, his 11th NBA franchise? Only Garrett Temple has played for more teams, with 12. Green is 38 years old, while six of the rotation’s top eight guys are 23 or younger.

Most important trade: December 12th, 1987 — a bona-fide blockbuster, with two No. 1 overall draft picks exchanged for each other. Houston sent Ralph Sampson, a four-time All-Star and former Rookie of the Year, along with guard Steve “Silk” Harris, over to Golden State. Its return was a pair of All-Stars in Sleepy Floyd and Joe Barry Carroll. All four players posted lower per-game win shares with their new teams.

League Pass games worth watching

• Los Angeles Lakers @ Minnesota Timberwolves (Friday, 8 p.m. ET) — The Lakers enjoyed a strong start to this incipient season but enter the week at 13-11. The Wolves looked a bit shaky but notched four straight wins before falling to the Warriors Sunday night. They begin the week at 12-11. Anthony Davis and Anthony Edwards are playing at an All-NBA level. Julius Randle and D’Angelo Russell will face their former teams in this one. And Minnesota’s mascots, Air Crunch and Chomper, do synchronized dance routines that border on surreal.
• Los Angeles Clippers @ Denver Nuggets (Friday, 9 p.m. ET) — Los Angeles begins the week at 14-11, while Denver is 12-10. Nikola Jokić and James Harden are always on triple-double watch. The Clippers are top-10 in defensive rating. The Nuggets are top-10 in offensive rating.

(Photo of Trae Young and Mikal Bridges: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)