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Chapter 1: What did Kawhi Leonard achieve in his recent game?
Tiny grain of affection from a warm-hearted hand. Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily, presented by Amazon Prime for March 12th, 2026. I'm Dave DeFore, here with Zena Keita. Coming up, Kawhi Leonard has a huge night for the Clippers, and Josh Robbins is here to talk about the resurging Orlando Magic.
Good morning, everybody. What's up, Zena? What up? I'm so jealous. You guys got an 83-point game out of BAM. And don't get me wrong, Kawhi tried his best to get there, but it's just not the same vibes.
Bryce Sensabaugh, look, I'm just going to say, he had... 10 points in like the first four and a half minutes of that. And I was thinking, Oh man, that guy, he's a, he's a walking bucket as it is. It'd be amazing if he did it. But no, did not happen. Shout out to the Knicks for coming back. Cause man, if they lost to Utah, Ooh, buddy, we would have had a lot to talk about.
Well, let's talk about, look, the Wolves, they lost back-to-back. This L.A. double-dip back-to-back has gotten a couple teams. They got the Knicks the other night. Now they've got the Wolves. They've lost back-to-back games here in the West, and everything's super tight. But the Clippers, look, they have been very good as of late. They now, you know, they're a game above .500.
Kawhi Leonard, 45 points, is his fifth 40-plus point game this season. Still got his 20-point game streak, you know, going. This is some of the best basketball that Kawhi Leonard has maybe ever played.
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Chapter 2: How has Kawhi Leonard's performance impacted the Clippers' season?
And that's not hyperbole. Like, he looks fantastic right now. And the Clippers have no real hope of getting out of the play-in. Like, I don't even think they can get to the seventh seed. But, man, I would not want to play the Clippers with Kawhi Leonard looking like this in a must-win game. Xena, are we going to see the Clippers maybe make some noise?
I think so. I absolutely think so. And it is so weird to think that we're saying this after the departure of James Harden and Avicii Zubats because we immediately thought ā Oh, they're clearing out the cupboards. They're moving on. We'll see what happens. But Kawhi Leonard is such a force that you cannot deny. And that's what I think is even most impressive about his game.
Like, yes, the 45 points last night against the Wolves is phenomenal, but it's also what his performance is doing for everyone else, right? It's the water, the tide that raises all ships. You're seeing Derrick Jones Jr. make these outside shots, get inside. You're seeing Jordan Miller, this young guy coming off the bench, being so explosive to the basket.
Of course, we know the story about Benedict Matherin that's been dropping buckets. Derrick Garland looks amazing. Everyone on this team, Brooke Lopez was hitting outside shots. Like this was amazing to see overall that it feels like all of the Clippers are raising to the level of what Kawhi needs.
And I mean that from a speed level, how fast they're playing, how fast they're playing on both sides of the ball and their efficiency from the floor. Yeah.
They feel so much younger, right? Like they're way younger than they started the season. And look, Yannick, Conan, Niederhausen being out is a huge bummer. I know to you, Xena, especially. But him being out is a huge bummer because we got to see a little bit of his athleticism on display.
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Chapter 3: What factors contributed to the Clippers' recent success?
And you could see how, man, come playoff time, he would be a nice guy coming off the bench. You know, maybe Brooke Lopez isn't as effective. So we're not going to get a chance to see them at the playoffs. full strength of what the team could have been. But it is odd to talk about the Clippers team and feel like, oh, wow, they kind of got some youth out there. And you mentioned Darius Garland.
Look, put up 21 points, rounding back into form. Like, I don't know. They're a lot of fun. For the Wolves, look, it's tough. It's tough to go back-to-back against two pretty good teams, or at least two decent teams around your level with the Lakers catching them.
I'll just say this really quickly on the Clippers. Two really good teams. The Clippers, all season long, 17th net rating, 12th offensive, 19th defensive. Not that great. In these last five games, top 10. Almost top five in their offense and their defense. Excuse me, in their net rating. This is the difference. You're seeing them play a lot faster. The Wolves were victim to this.
And you saw that blowout, 27-point blowout. Anthony Edwards, you heard even their announcers talking about this, the Clippers announcers talking about the inconsistency of the Timberwolves. And this is why it's hard to take them seriously as a contending team. But we know, and we've talked about this, the Wolves have a way of waking up They wake up for the big stages.
And so they have these type of games and you're like, how much how much weight can we actually put on this? Right. But man, they they got blown out.
Yeah. Yeah. It was it was honestly it was pretty embarrassing. Look, we should move on to the other big game in the West. Speaking of embarrassing, it's again, second night of a back to back for the Houston Rockets, too. And they look like it, especially in the second half when when the Nuggets really just blew them out of the water. One twenty nine ninety three.
The Nuggets, you know, just they won going away. I think that the biggest takeaway, not much for the Rockets, but for the Nuggets, this is kind of what we wanted to see.
this is that starting unit that we've been waiting all year to see full strength and they finally really put it all together last night um you know jamal murray has 30 points yokich you know it's a good night for him because he only had to have 16 points for his triple double right thank you that's the biggest point when you have a triple double sure 16 points 12 rebounds 13 assists adding also five steals that's another major factor we want to touch on and a block
Hey, we got to give him credit for the block because we hammer him when he doesn't. Exactly. Let's give him all his credit. He didn't need to score. The ball movement was immaculate. It was a master class. And then it was a lot of stuff was coming off of transition and they had the momentum going up the court. You were watching Denver blitz Kevin Durant almost every pick and roll opportunity.
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Chapter 4: How are the Orlando Magic performing this season?
right now. Yeah. That's actually, they really highlighted that they lack that depth and that size, you know, Clint Capella, you know, getting minutes is great, but I think they really miss Steven Adams and, you know, they don't shoot enough threes. You know, they got to figure out a way to shoot more threes and hopefully make them. And we got to give love to Christian Brown.
He was absurd off the bench.
Yeah, I had a great game. The Raptors drop a game to the Pelicans. Wow. S is in shambles right now. The Raptors have fallen behind the Orlando Magic in the standings. They're now the sixth seed. And look, I think the big takeaway from this is we talked about the Raptors quite a bit and None of us really bought into them as this contender. Okay.
But the Pelicans are better than their record, and they've been getting healthy over the course of the last few weeks. Got to note a couple of things. Number one, Zion Williamson played 50 games this year. That's pretty incredible considering what our expectations have kind of been with him. And there's still time to go, and he's still healthy. DeJounte Murray coming back from the Achilles.
I know we kind of went ā way over the top on the Tatum stuff. You know, the story there, just such a short window there. But DeJounte Murray had his best game back from his Achilles injury, put up 27 points, had a couple steals, six assists. That's been a big change for them too. Like you get a guy out there who he really is a playmaker. He's a good rebounder, good defender.
And it really raised, like you mentioned before, that rising tide. He really has been a rising tide, I think, for this team.
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Chapter 5: What role is Paolo Banchero playing in the Magic's resurgence?
And it's easier for him to be a rising tide because he quite literally is the table setter. Right. Like he gets them into, I think, better quality sets than they had before he came back to the floor. And he does a really great job of penetrating gaps. He's very aggressive.
And we I mean, I don't know if you guys saw that in the fourth quarter, that little crossover into a three and then, you know, standing over a player. He has such a feistiness to him and a grit and a chip on his shoulder to him, which I love. Shout out to state of Washington and where he's from in Seattle because they gave him that. But that's that's starting to show up for the Pels.
I absolutely believe we all season we were watching Jeremiah Fears and Derrick Queen and we were like, look at them go like this is fun. But now you've got Trey Murphy hitting outside shots the way he's supposed to be. You've got Herb Jones also shooting outside incredibly well, playing defense incredibly well.
You've got Zion Williamson with the paint presence, the physicality, which was huge against Toronto. They could not match up. Jacopoto was not matching up well against Zion. He kept getting to the line. This is... This is a true team that you can't say, look at the little engine that could.
This is a team that, sure, their record is representative of the injuries that they had earlier this season, but they can't afford to tank.
I mean, they're starting five veterans in this game last night. They're veterans, exactly. And they look like it. They look like a much better team. And frankly, there's some guys on that team that if the Raptors had They probably feel a lot better about life, especially Trey Murphy III. Anyway, guys, stick around.
After the break, we've got Josh Robbins to talk about the magic and a little bit about the Wizards in that Bam Adebayo game. Tiny grain of affection from a warm-hearted hand.
Kun maku ja laatu ratkaisee, valitse Arvid Nordqvist kahvi. Reilumman maun puolesta.
All right, the Orlando Magic are back. They are now the fifth seed after last night's win over the Cleveland Cavaliers, 128-122. And with the Raptors' loss, our guy Josh Robbins, star of the show, special guest star. This is almost like when they would bring in a famous person on your favorite TV show. That's who Josh is for us. And the whole crowd goes, ooh! That's right. That's right.
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Chapter 6: What playoff concerns do the Magic face?
Who is the better matchup for Orlando? Is it Cleveland? Is it New York? Is it Detroit? In many ways, I think maybe Detroit's the better one for them of those three teams, which is bizarre to say. But that is how I feel. And I think Cleveland, from the Magic's perspective, would probably be their second best possibility, followed by the Knicks.
But it would be a heck of a series if that's how it comes down.
Why Detroit? Is that because of Detroit? Yeah, I was going to say, is it the offense? Zena and I, we're just like, what?
I don't know. Refresh my memory. Where is Detroit in the league rankings on its threes?
Oh, well, we can look that up. Yeah, certainly.
But I think that's a team where they can key on one guy offensively. And I think that makes them, in my opinion, in the half court, in a playoff series, more easy to guard than Cleveland. Now, having said that, the last time those two teams played, the Pistons' physicality dominated that game. So that would be a tough, rough series. But so would a Cleveland-Orlando series.
Detroit 21st. All right, so there you go. They're bottom three in made and attempted threes, right? Like the volume thing becomes a problem for Detroit.
So I think that's a team that Orlando can stick with in a best-of-seven series. Because of that, it's not ā yes, Detroit's a better, much better three-point shooting team, but not to the degree that other opponents would be.
Yeah. I'm curious. I want to focus particularly on all the things that Orlando's been doing really well, especially in the absence of a particular really special player named Franz Wagner. 7-3 in his absence since the break, winning record, top defense. We've seen Paolo lock in, not only offensively. He's been kind of resurgent in a defensive manner that we haven't really seen out of him at all.
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Chapter 7: How is Desmond Bane contributing to the Grizzlies' success?
Whereas if they're projected starting five, they're going to have to get into the paint And there's no guarantee they can hit threes. Even now, there's no guarantee they can hit threes. Again, something to watch. But they need Franz back. They do need AB back. But it's still, right now, the offense is more balanced and it's more diversified.
Yeah. Having Tristan Da Silva as the shooter and play finisher out with Suggs and Bain and with Paolo, I just think it's fewer mouths to feed. And in a lot of ways, that just clarifies the roles more on the offensive end.
But, you know, the thing about talent is that it's up to the coach to kind of figure out how to make this stuff fit, like our style of play, you know, what our goals are as an offense. And this is where you get into the math problem that Orlando may run into come playoff time if they're full strength.
Because they just don't have the floor spacing with their starting unit that is their best five. I mean, that is the best five-man unit they could put out there, and it includes Franz and Paolo. Sorry to say to all the people who think that they need to be split up. I just don't know how it works in the way that we're seeing right now.
And some of this, hey, it's March basketball, like you said, Josh. But, you know, what does this team look like full strength come playoff time? Like, are they just right back to the same offensive issues that we saw to start the year?
So, by the way, Tristan was great tonight. Jed Howard was superb tonight, by the way. He made two big threes. Yeah. Tristan was not playing like this two months ago. He was, I think, battling through an injury. He started the season off pretty strong, and then he had that lull, and he had a shoulder issue. I think it was with his right shoulder.
Anyway, when he's playing well and he's hitting shots, you've got to have people who knock down shots. You don't really need to get too much further into the X's and O's other than saying you better have at least three people on the court at all times who you can count on to hit 38% or more wide open threes. And when they're fully healthy, they're not quite there.
They're not even close to quite there.
Yeah.
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Chapter 8: What are the Wizards' current challenges and future prospects?
Well, I don't know where to start. I don't know where to start. I'll try to go as quickly as I can, and I'm going to try not to stammer. Take your time. You want to hear this. Okay, so Trey Young's impact on their offense, that's real. It's only been two games for him, but that's real. There was one play in New Orleans. I was in New Orleans for it.
Trey drove to his right, toward the right edge of the lane. He took four defenders with him. And he threw it out to the top of the arc where Trey Johnson was and trade knocks open a wide open three. And so next year when Trey young is playing 30 plus minutes, Trey Johnson, Keyshawn George, uh, everyone else is going to get so many more open threes beneficiaries. Yeah.
It's, it's, uh, it's going to be insane for them. Uh, And then AD, how healthy will he remain? What kind of mindset will he have? Will he be happy to be there? We'll see. As for Bam, their defense on him to begin the game was atrocious. No resistance. They made hardly any adjustments in the first half.
As Brian Keefe said, and he said a lot of things after the game, including some of those fouls might have been ridiculous. Well, okay. But he also said they have to own the fact that in the first half, Bam had no resistance. So that was horrendous. And they have to have more adjustments.
And when they finally made the adjustments, Miami was then in a point where it was turning the game into not a true NBA game in the sense that they were up 20 and they were fouling. They were missing free throws on purpose, which... doesn't upset me, I would imagine it infuriated the Wizards. I would imagine that it infuriated the Wizards.
This is... I've been working this out in my mind for now 36 hours. And what I keep coming back to is if you're a tanking team... You're putting yourself in line to be humiliated. Now, not to the tune of 83 points.
Right.
That's insane. It's absurd. It's the second greatest scoring output in the history of the, what, 84 years of the league or whatever it is? Mm-hmm. I mean, that's insane, 83 points, okay?
Yeah.
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