This week’s must-watch games in the Eastern Conference: Joel Embiid, NBA Cup return

It’s NBA Cup week, also known as in-season tournament, also Emirates Cup or Weird Courts Cup week. The surprisingly successful mid-season competition is entering its second season. Hopefully the intensity of last season’s games continues and we gain some momentum as we head into the second month of this year’s already dramatic season.

For some teams, traveling to Las Vegas to lift a trophy is the last thing they need to worry about. The Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks find themselves at the bottom of a previously weak Eastern Conference. At least the Sixers can look forward to Joel Embiid’s return on Tuesday.

For other teams, the NBA Cup could be a good stimulus, as it was for the Indiana Pacers last year. Perhaps the Detroit Pistons will try their best to reach the highly competitive and high-profile knockout stages of the tournament.

For now, however, Cleveland’s worries are beyond concern. The Cavaliers are undefeated and are already separating themselves from a large portion of the conference (the Celtics are hanging with them).

All of these narratives and storylines will merge throughout the week and change until next Monday. The following games will help you keep track of the changing tides of the conference. As always, it’s one game per day. Nice and simple. Snack, lie down and enjoy.

November 11th:
Chicago Bulls @ Cleveland Cavaliers
I will continue to put the Cavaliers on this list until they lose a game. Their 11-0 start is the best in franchise history and the third 11-0 start or better in the new millennium. The 2002-03 Dallas Mavericks started 14-0 and lost in the conference finals, and the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors went 24-0 and famously lost in the NBA Finals. Of all the teams that started 11-0 or better, only two didn’t make it to the conference finals. If the Cavs start 13-0, history has them booked as one of the last two Eastern teams.

The 1996-97 Chicago Bulls started 12-0 en route to winning the championship. Their 2023-24 roster doesn’t quite compare to this team’s, but they certainly want to defend the franchise’s history and hand the Cavs their first loss. They played at the fastest pace in the league and had the second-best assist rate. That means basketball is fun.

Bulls center Nikola Vučević shoots 47.7% from deep and can lure Evan Mobley or Jarrett Allen out of their comfort zone, the paint. In fact, Chicago has three starters shooting better than 40% from three players: Vučević, Zach Lavine and Josh Giddey. When those three shoot away and other capable shooters surround them, the Bulls score 40% of their points from three.

The Cavs shoot less than the Bulls, but lead the league in 3P% and are in the top 10 in reducing opponents’ three-point attempts. Something has to give. If you don’t like thinking about numbers, enjoy the ridiculous play of the guards: Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Zach Lavine and Coby White.

November 12th:
New York Knicks @ Philadelphia 76ers (NBA Cup)
I don’t normally include Philly games in this weekly column because I want a way to keep track of the rest of the East. But Embiid’s return is inevitable. The first game day of the NBA Cup is at home against the New York Knicks. This is cinema.

Hopefully Paul George is healthy so we can see how he fits with Embiid. But the most important thing will be how the big man looks and plays. On media day he claimed he had lost weight and the eye test he took in street clothes during the games confirmed these claims. And we all know how miserable the team was without their MVP. Will that ugly start be just a faint memory by July, or will it be a hole already so big that a 7-footer the team can’t even climb out of?

While not as disastrous as the Sixers, the New York Knicks themselves have had a disappointing start to the season. At 4-5 after a week with one win and three losses, they’ll be looking to pick up a point and beat their old rivals. The last time they faced a division rival on national television was the opening night thrashing at the hands of the Boston Celtics. They want to clean up the memories of casual observers.

November 13th:
Detroit Pistons @ Milwaukee Bucks
I’ll continue to put Milwaukee Bucks games on this list for the opposite reason that I’m keeping Cavs games here: the Bucks suck right now. They had the most embarrassing start of the conference and that fueled the fire that led to Giannis Antetokounmpo trade smoke.

They are old. You can’t defend yourself. And star guard Damian Lillard has been inconsistent, scoring four points after 33-point games, or a 111-point three-game stretch with 19 and 14-point games. And they hardly own any of their picks. Every loss brings them closer to a complete reboot and a relapse into pre-Giannis irrelevance.

And the Detroit Pistons, relevant for all the wrong reasons last year, are struggling to be legitimately relevant this season. They currently sit in 10th place in the conference with a record of 4-7. That includes an 0-3 start and two two-point losses to the Houston Rockets and Charlotte Hornets. So their 4-4 run since then has been a bit of a winning streak, at least by their standards. Detroit has already won as many times in 11 games this year as it did in 40 games last season. This is relevant, baby.

November 14th:
Dallas Mavericks @ Utah Jazz
The only game today is Utah Jazz vs. Dallas Mavericks, which may be fun but has nothing to do with the East. Maybe spend this time with family…or watch some games you missed yesterday.

November 15th:
Miami Heat @ Indiana Pacers (NBA Cup)
The Indiana Pacers are off to a 5-5 start. That’s below expectations for a team that made it to the conference finals, but it’s still the third seed. The East is wide open after Boston and Cleveland, and Indiana wants to be in the conversation.

Last year, they entered the conversation with their extraordinary success in the championship game of the in-season tournament and perhaps heralded their success in the playoffs.

Can they recapture that magic and differentiate themselves from the rest of the conference below them? To achieve this, Tyrese Haliburton will have to improve drastically. Although he had 35 points and 14 assists in a recent win over New York, he only had six points in the loss to the Hornets the game before. Your star guardian can’t be that fickle. It may be a back injury, as reported Yahoos Kevin O’Connor, or it’s just a crazy beginning. Either way, these hyped NBA Cup games should be a good test.

The Miami Heat have lost all the aura that their “culture” and 2023 Finals run gave them. They’re the sixth seed with a 4-6 start, but things were just so “meh” in South Beach. They rank 18th in offensive rating, 15th in defensive rating and 17th in net rating. Talk about average.

Bam Adebayo was strangely ineffective early in the season, averaging 14.8 points on 45.2% shooting. This TS% ranks 369th for players who average more than 15 minutes per game. Big praise. He shouldn’t be as bad the rest of the season and could get back into the swing of things against Indiana, which allows the fourth-most points per game.

November 16th:
Toronto Raptors @ Boston Celtics
Because they embody math ball and the supremacy of the three-point shot, the Boston Celtics should be seen at least once a week. They don’t just do threesomes. They force weak defenders into actions and misbalances, attack the ball, then step out and turn the ball to the open thrower, which is always there. They’re one of those teams that are so good that it makes you think about rejecting the basic principles of basketball: Maybe it’s better not to send help and force them to shoot… open layups.

And the Raptors have some fun characters. RJ Barrett is now in the driver’s seat while Scottie Barnes is out for weeks. Immanuel Quickley is back from injury and will have one of the greenest lights in the league. Coach Darko Rajaković has the third highest assist rate in the league and has them playing an entertaining brand of basketball. It’s just that they’re also the worst defensive team in the league. So the Celtics could score 200 points.

November 17th:
Brooklyn Nets @New York Knicks
At the end of the week there is the Battle of the Bridge. Mikal Bridges will play this season against the team he left. And the Brooklyn Nets have started the season better than expected.

It should be a fire show as the Knicks have the second best offense in the league and the Nets have Cam Thomas who averages 25 on 56% TS.

Karl Anthony-Towns vs. Ben Simmons was once a much-hyped fight between friends who were also No. 1 contenders (and sometimes ended in a chokehold). Unfortunately, it died down along with the Simmons games being played. However, if there could be anything, it’s a hostile crowd at Madison Square Garden.