NBA players set record with 16 40-point games in first week of season

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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A week into the NBA season, the defenses are losing. By a lot.

If it seems like there's never been this many high-scoring performances in the first few days of a season, that's because this indeed is unprecedented. Going into Tuesday, there have been 16 instances of a player scoring 40 or more points in a game already this season.

Austin Reaves and Luka Doncic of the Los Angeles Lakers have already had 40-point games twice, and Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey has two so far himself.

The others who have done it so far this season: Denver’s Aaron Gordon, Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards, Brooklyn’s Cam Thomas, Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Denver’s Jamal Murray, Boston’s Jaylen Brown, Utah’s Lauri Markkanen, Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Golden State’s Stephen Curry and San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama — who did it in his first regular-season game in eight months following the deep vein thrombosis scare last season.

“I felt like I needed to make a statement to my teammates,” Wembanyama said.

There seems to be a lot of that going around. Players are making statements just about every night so far this season.

All these big-number games are being somewhat overshadowed right now by last week's news that Portland coach Chauncey Billups and Miami guard Terry Rozier were among those arrested by federal officials for their alleged roles in gambling-related schemes. There are two different cases; one claims defendants were involved in poker games that used technology to defraud players, the other case revolves largely around tipping bettors off with inside information that they could use to wager on NBA games.

Both the House and Senate have asked the NBA for more information, and Commissioner Adam Silver — in remarks last week on Amazon Prime Video's first NBA regular-season broadcast — apologized to fans that the on-court play wasn't the biggest story in the league right now.

Ordinarily, that would most certainly be the case — especially with the sorts of numbers that are coming every night so far.

On average, there are 2.4 instances of the league seeing a player scoring 40 points in the first four games of a season. The previous record for such events was nine, three seasons ago. This season’s number is nearly double that, and there’s still a couple days left for players to add to that total.

“It is only a week into it ... but the offensive explosion is nothing new in the league,” Phoenix coach Jordan Ott said. “I think it’s a little surprising here early in the season. I’m not sure if that’s been the trend over the last couple years.”

His instincts are correct. It has not been the case over the last couple years. Or, really, at any point in the 80 seasons of NBA basketball.

Early season statistics are easily misinterpreted; the sample size for everything is still way too small to make any absolute conclusions. But going into Tuesday, NBA games this season were seeing an average of 236.6 points per game. That’s a 7.6% increase over what scoring was through four games for each team last season.

Teams are playing faster, and they’re also getting to the foul line. Teams are shooting more free throws per game — again, small sample size, but still — than at any point over the last 30 seasons. That’s a fairly potent combination and the perfect recipe for a ton of points to be scored, especially in this era where just about every player in the league is a 3-point threat.

“We're keeping up with the game,” Miami center Bam Adebayo said. The Heat — not known for playing super-fast — scored more points in their first three games this season than any opening three-game stretch in franchise history.

Reaves had his 40-or-more games on back-to-back nights Sunday and Monday, something nobody has done this early in a season since Shaquille O'Neal did so for Orlando on Nov. 9-10, 1994 — the third and fourth games of that Magic season.

There were four such games on Monday alone: Reaves had 41, Maxey had 43, Murray had 43 and Markkanen scored 51.

“Lauri played great, 51 points is a lot,” Jazz coach Will Hardy said, stating the obvious.

Thing is, players are making these big nights look so easy right now.

This is the first time in NBA history that there have been four 50-point games — Markkanen's 51, Reaves' 51 on Sunday, and last Thursday's 50-point game from Gordon along with a 55-point game from Oklahoma City's reigning scoring champion and MVP in Gilgeous-Alexander — so early in a season.

Reaves joined a short list of players with 40 or more on back-to-back nights over the first four games of a season. O'Neal did it, Michael Jordan did it three times (1986, 1989, 1991), Reggie Theus did it in 1982, and — who else? — Wilt Chamberlain actually did it on back-to-back-to-back days in 1961 and 1962.

Reaves put on his scoring cape out of necessity; the Lakers are seriously short-handed. LeBron James hasn't played yet this season and Doncic was held out of the games on Sunday and Monday because of injuries as well.

“I'm tired,” Reaves said Monday night. “But this is why we play the games. It's fun.”

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