The NBA season is underway and it has gotten off to the quickest start it ever has. With multiple 40 and 50 point games within the first week it seems as if the scoring output in the league is going to be higher than it’s ever been. Team scoring numbers are also high, with teams like the Mavericks and Hornets scoring near 140 in one of their first three games, so the question is what is causing this major influx in NBA scoring, and we might be able to find the answer by deep diving into these outbursts.
After these first three games of the season the apparent thing is that the pace of the game has reached new heights for some of these younger less experienced teams, which makes for fun basketball to watch, but also makes it far more challenging for defenders to even relatively keep up. For teams like the Hornets, Cavs, and Pistons the pace stat, a stat that determines how many possessions on average a team has throughout a game, is at well over 100. For reference, last season’s leader in pace was the Grizzlies with a pace of just over 101 for the entire season, the Hornets have a pace right now of over 106.
Another reason why the NBA is having a scoring outburst to start the season is because of the use of drop coverage on main shooters and ball handlers. Drop coverage is a defense meant to cover up a roll man off a screen, but when NBA players are comfortable shooting the ball from anywhere, drop coverage becomes useless and even a net negative. Giving NBA players wide open three-pointers in 2025 is counterproductive and leads to supernova scoring outings for players like Luka Doncic and Tyrese Maxey, two players that take advantage of drop coverage every time they play against it. When asked about drop coverage, Donald Hatisman said, “It should be criminally punishable to run drop coverage in the NBA in 2025.”
Players such as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Doncic, and Maxey have broken basketball with their unstoppable moves and unstoppable physical attributes. Their influx in points leads to these outrageous pace numbers and they are showing no signs of slowing down. Fast starts to the NBA season have been relatively common over the past couple of years, but the numbers from this season aid the argument that this season’s start stands alone. In the first week of the season a historical sixteen 40-point games were recorded, which is tied for the most with last season. After those two seasons the record plummets down to just nine forty point games in the first week, furthering the notion that NBA players have potentially mastered offense and how to bend and manipulate the rules and crevices of the game to gain an advantage.
It would be a mistake not to also mention the catastrophic collapse of defensive integrity in the NBA and how the league has ignored the defensive side of the ball in favor of a more offensive-heavy, highlight-heavy league. So many players now are bending and breaking the rules of defense and in turn are breaking offensive records while manipulating defenses and the referees. For example Thunder Star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had a 55-point outing in his second game of the season. He shot a staggering 26 free throws in this game, which is a lot even for a double over time game. He accomplished this by being able to bend defenders and make the referees respect his tactics of creating a foul. This is just one example of how offensive players and stars are able to score so many points, they’re able to re-write rules for themselves and their benefit.
The NBA is entering a new era of scoring and the many high scoring games to start the season is just a fraction of the puzzle that is the interesting balance of trying to even out the offensive and defensive peaks of the game. If these outings say even a whisper of the outings we’ll be seeing throughout the long season, It’s safe to say the NBA has an offense problem that may not ever be fixed, and it may not ever need to be.