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If you skipped watching this game and just saw the box score, you’d probably think this was a pro forma elite team stomps on tanking team NBA win. And you wouldn’t be totally wrong: Oklahoma City Thunder scored 132 points, won by 21, and got 40 points from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and 20 rebounds and 10 assists from Isaiah Hartenstein.

But the details? Worth the watch.

First, the Wizards stayed close for three quarters because they made seemingly every open three-pointer they got, and even a few that weren’t open.

Second, the first half closed with I think the weirdest out-of-nowhere “fights” I’ve seen since I started watching the NBA. In 1978.

It was a competitive affair, but well- and fairly played. No obvious cheap shots or cowardly shoves or even much of the grifter bull butter that can grate on an opponent’s nerves.

And then, Oklahoma City’s Jaylin Williams and Justin Champagnie bumped into each other after Washington scored. And for whatever reason, they both decided that what really needed to happen was that they should bump into each other again. And then push each other.

The two separated, Bilal Coulibaly went over to Champagnie to calm him down, and a ref rushed in to defuse the skirmish. All routine pissing match stuff.

And then, Ajay Mitchell thought it would be a good idea to run up and yell at Champagnie while pushing Coulibaly and Champagnie. To which Champagnie responded by pushing Mitchell in the face. For some reason, Mitchell took umbrage, and he went after Champagnie — somehow kinda getting past Coulibaly, whose reflexes surely rank in the top 1% in all of human history.

At which point frigging everyone on the court and all the assistant coaches from both teams and arena security piled up in a huge scrum that spilled into courtside seats and…well…looked bad, at least live. The actual fight-fight was mostly a few guys pushing and shoving and a bunch of guys trying to break up the fight. While the whole group staggered into the mostly-deserted seats.

As an aside, big-time kudos to the man in black who shielded the woman sitting next to him from the incoming tsunami of NBA players by holding up his drink. Even bigger kudos to the woman, who never flinched from a ton-plus of humanity spilling off the basketball court directly at her.

Another aside: if the team didn’t give the man in black a replacement drink after Anthony Gill accidentally slapped it out of his hand, Gill needs to send the guy a $20.

Anyway, the refs reviewed the footage and emerged from their conclave to announce the ejections of Champagnie, Mitchell, Williams, and Cason Wallace. In the whole fracas, Mitchell and Wallace were the only guys interested in genuine conflict. Even Champagnie mostly seemed like a cranky unc who just wanted people to get out of his way and leave him alone.

My guess is that tomorrow, the NBA will fine and suspend Champagnie, Mitchell and maybe Wallace. It’d be a stretch to turn that push into a punch, but Champagnie’s hand did touch Mitchell’s face in anger, which is a big no-no. So, I’d be surprised if Champagnie gets less than two games. I’d guess one for Mitchell, and maybe two or three for Wallace, who provided much of acceleration of force that moved the conflict from the baseline into the stands.

Oh yeah, there was a game. The general gist of this one was that from the first quarter, it felt like the Wizards would be quickly vanquished if they ever cooled off from three-point range. In the meantime, Oklahoma City bludgeoned Washington on the boards, clowned them with skilled passing, and rode elite scoring from Gilgeous-Alexander. The Wizards started missing in the fourth quarter, and they were quickly vanquished.

How quickly? The Thunder didn’t need to bring Gilgeous-Alexander back in the game, but they did it anyway while up 18 so he could get to 40.

Thoughts & Observations

• What is the decision-making process that has the Wizards celebrating “Cherry Blossom Night” and the team NOT wearing those cherry blossom uniforms? Lemme just say, “BOOOOOO!” Those pink cherry blossom duds were the best ones the team has had, maybe ever.
• Kinda weird considering Gilgeous-Alexander went for 40, but I didn’t think the Wizards defended him badly. He’s just that good.
• The preceding bullet should not be construed as me saying the Wizards defended well. They did not.
• Odd and interesting offensive possession at 5:10 of the first quarter. The Wizards set a pindown screen for Coulibaly. For some reason, Gilgeous-Alexander top-locked (sought to deny Coulibaly from getting the ball from the off-ball screen). Coulibaly went back door, Sarr hit him with the pass, and Coulibaly converted the layup. Why was Gilgeous-Alexander trying to deny the ball? I have no idea. Most teams are happy to concede threes to Coulibaly. Perhaps Oklahoma City was working on something for a different opponent.
• At 1:37 of the first quarter, the Wizards ran a nifty backdoor action that got Anthony Gill an and-one. I rewound the play, wanting to give credit to Gill for the cut and Cooper for the pass only to learn that it was a case where OKC simply didn’t guard Gill. Seriously, Alex Caruso matched up with Jamir Watkins and let Gill go by…and there was no one behind him. Oops.
• General observation: OKC switches on defense are a work of art — and they weren’t even at their best last night.
• Coulibaly got aggressive offensively in the third quarter — repeatedly attacking and carrying the Wizards offense. Check out the possession at 4:27 of the third — he attacked off the bounce with multiple moves (made necessary by Tristan Vukcevic getting in the way on his first drive attempt). He kept his dribble alive despite aggressive pressure defense from Gilgeous-Alexander, and then finished by snaking past Kenrich Williams for a floater. That was high-level stuff.
• NBA defenders have a lot of trouble staying in front of Coulibaly when he goes into attack mode.
• The more he plays, the less like an NBA player Sharife Cooper looks.
• Cool moment: Early in the fourth quarter, Caruso turned down an open three and Oklahoma City had to reset after Washington nearly got a steal and knocked the ball out of bounds. During the stoppage, Hartenstein came over to Caruso and told him he needed to take that shot.
• The Wizards commit a lot of dumb and pointless fouls.
• Amusing moment: Gill erased a Coulibaly score by hanging on the rim while Coulibaly’s shot was in the cylinder. OKC broadcaster Michael Cage called it a youthful mistake.
• This victory marks 11 in a row for Oklahoma City. The loss is Washington’s 15th in a row.

Four Factors

Below are the four factors that decide wins and losses in basketball — shooting (efg), rebounding (offensive rebounds), ball handling (turnovers), fouling (free throws made).

The four factors are measured by:

• eFG% (effective field goal percentage, which accounts for the three-point shot)
• OREB% (offensive rebound percentage)
• TOV% (turnover percentage — turnovers divided by possessions)
• FTM/FGA (free throws made divided by field goal attempts)

Stats & Metrics

PPA is my overall production metric, which credits players for things they do that help a team win (scoring, rebounding, playmaking, defending) and dings them for things that hurt (missed shots, turnovers, bad defense, fouls).

PPA is a per possession metric designed for larger data sets. In small sample sizes, the numbers can get weird. In PPA, 100 is average, higher is better and replacement level is 45. For a single game, replacement level isn’t much use, and I reiterate the caution about small samples sometimes producing weird results.

POSS is the number of possessions each player was on the floor in this game.

ORTG = offensive rating, which is points produced per individual possessions x 100. League average so far this season is listed in the Four Factors table above. Points produced is not the same as points scored. It includes the value of assists and offensive rebounds, as well as sharing credit when receiving an assist.

USG = offensive usage rate. Average is 20%. Median so far this season is 17.7%.

ORTG and USG are versions of stats created by former Wizards assistant coach Dean Oliver and modified by me. ORTG is an efficiency measure that accounts for the value of shooting, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers. USG includes shooting from the floor and free throw line, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers.

+PTS = “Plus Points” is a measure of the points gained or lost by each player based on their efficiency in this game compared to league average efficiency on the same number of possessions. A player with an offensive rating (points produced per possession x 100) of 100 who uses 20 possessions would produce 20 points. If the league average efficiency is 115, the league — on average — would produced 23.0 points in the same 20 possessions. So, the player in this hypothetical would have a +PTS score of -3.0.

Players are sorted by total production in the game.

Selection Sunday was just one week ago, but the men's NCAA Tournament has already seen 44 teams eliminated from the field of 68. And by the end of Sunday, we will have our Sweet 16 locked in after eight second-round matchups take place across the country.

There's plenty of storylines to watch. No. 1 seeds Florida and Arizona hoping to avoid the upset bug that has typified previous editions of March Madness. Likewise, there's some potential danger for No. 2 seeds Purdue and Connecticut.

So how will the day unfold and where should you be focusing your attention with 12 hours of action on tap? We ranked all eight games and broke down each of the matchups. Enjoy the drama sure to unfold.

1. No. 4 St. John's vs. No. 5 Kansas

Time/TV: 5:15 p.m. ET, CBS

These are the classic matchups in the second round that match traditional powerhouses with teams capable of making deep tournament runs. And you've got one of the best coaching matchups of the second round with Rick Pitino facing off against Bill Self. Only one get advance to the regional round. St. John's, which has won 20 of its last 21 games, made light work of Northern Iowa with a balanced effort. Kansas got a needed big game for freshman standout Darryn Peterson, which could bode well for their hopes of advancing.

2. No. 4 Alabama vs. No. 5 Texas Tech

Time/TV: 9:45 p.m. ET, TBS

Both teams with be without standout players with the Crimson Tide missing point guard Aden Holloway after his arrest earlier this week and the Red Raiders dealing with a season-ending injury to forward JT Toppin. This game should be played at a frenetic pace with both teams shooting first and asking questions later. The depth of Alabama could play a critical role, but Texas Tech guard Christian Anderson has the ability to carry his team to the Sweet 16 for the second year in a row.

CINDERELLA'S TIME: Ranking the most likely upsets in the second round

3. No. 2 Iowa State vs. No. 7 Kentucky

Time/TV: 2:45 p.m. ET, CBS

The Wildcats were seconds away from being out of the tournament before heroics by Otega Oweh forced overtime and they got past Santa Clara. The challenge will be much greater now with the Cyclones playing their best basketball of the season. Iowa State blew away Tennessee State in its opener with role players Killyan Toure and Nate Heise doing much of the damage. Veteran guard Tamin Lipsey may have more of the heavy lifting against Kentucky with forward Joshua Jefferson dealing with an ankle injury suffered in the first round.

4. No. 3 Virginia vs. No. 6 Tennessee

Time/TV: 6:10 p.m. ET, TNT

Orange will be the color of the day in Philadelphia with these border-state schools squaring off. The Cavaliers had a bumpy start against Wright State before pulling away late. They've not faced many teams of the caliber of the Volunteers in their ACC schedule, so a more-complete effort is needed. Ja'Kobi Gillispie was outstanding in Tennessee's blowout of Miami (Ohio) and will need to be on point again with freshman Nate Ament struggling to play effectively due to an ankle injury.

SAN DIEGO –  St. John’s men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino wasn’t ready to announce his retirement yet or anything. But a day before his team played a first-round game here in the NCAA tournament, the Hall of Fame coach did look into a future where nothing is certain, especially at age 73.

“I could be out of coaching next year,” Pitino said Thursday, March 19. “I really can be. You're 73.  And I want to have the greatest time of my life.”

Judging by what's happened so far in San Diego, he might be doing that right now. No. 5 seed St. John’s defeated No. 12-seed Northern Iowa 79-53 in the first round Friday.

And now comes the main event on Sunday:

Pitino and St. John’s vs. fellow Hall of Fame coach Bill Self and No. 4 seed Kansas.

Rick Pitino, Bill Self are 'standing the test of time'

Pitino has won more than 900 games in his career. Self, 63, has won more than 800.

Each has won two national championships.

But they’ve only faced each other once. And this time there are huge stakes as both keep battling two larger forces – time and change. Almost nobody has survived them quite like these two.

CINDERELLA'S TIME: Ranking the most likely upsets in the second round

“There's so many great coaches out there, but they have a tough time standing the test of time,” Pitino said Saturday. “Bill has stood the test of time every single year.”

Self took it a step further when asked about Pitino Saturday. Consider the fact that Pitino is the answer to a certain trivia question.

Who’s the oldest head coach in Division I men’s basketball?

That would be Pitino, but then consider this: Pitino has thrived despite massive change to the game since he started his head coaching career at Boston University in 1978. A 45-second shot clock was introduced in 1985. Then the 3-point shot came in 1986. Pitino led Providence to the Final Four in 1987.

“The coaches that are so impressive to me are the coaches that coached without a 3-point line and then became efficient with the 3-point line, without a shot clock, then became one of the best with the shot clock, always evolving with the game,” Self said Saturday. “And I think that he's done that as well as anybody maybe ever has.”

In recent years, more change has roiled the game, leading some top coaches to quit.  Since 2024, players have been allowed to transfer without restriction after previously being required to first sit out a year before playing with their new team. Since 2021, players were allowed to earn money for the first time from their names, images and likenesses.

ADAPTING: How Rick Pitino experimented with transfer portal at St. John's — and won

Pitino then adapted to become the transfer portal king at St. John’s in 2023, when he flipped the roster and revitalized the program by bringing in 10 transfer players.

Likewise, Self has adjusted successfully, too, after starting his head coaching career at Oral Roberts in 1993. He’s kept Kansas at a high level and successfully lured phenom freshman guard Darryn Peterson, who might be the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft later this year.

Not everyone can do that or even wants to. Top coaches have quit amid the turmoil and changes to the sport, including Virginia’s Tony Bennett and Miami’s Jim Larrañaga.

Then there’s Pitino, who has evolved strategically, too.

“He's done it different ways,” Self said. “He's done it by pressing and zone pressing.  He's done it by just man-to-man pressure.  He's done it by being one of the first to take advantage of the 3-point line.  And now he's doing it by pummeling people inside and stuff, too. He's certainly adjusted to his roster, I think, probably as well as anybody in the game.”

SAN DIEGO – The big man of the moment here in Southern California goes by the name of “Zuby,” which is pronounced as “Zoobie” and is the nickname his mom gave him because it was easier to say than his real name – Chukwuebuka Ejiofor.

Get ready to hear it a lot on Sunday.

Zuby Ejiofor, a 6-foot-9 forward, started his college career at Kansas in 2022,  where he played for Hall of Fame coach Bill Self. Then he transferred to St. John’s in 2023 to play for Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino.

Three years later, Ejiofor, Pitino and No. 5 seed St. John’s face off against Self and No. 4 seed Kansas in a second-round men's NCAA Tournament game at Viejas Arena.

“We didn’t want him to leave,” Self said Saturday. “We’re really happy for his success. We just don’t … We just hope it doesn’t come against us.”

CINDERELLA'S TIME: Ranking the most likely upsets in the second round

Unfortunately for Self, Ejiofor happens to be on a monster run right now. He is the reigning Big East Conference player of the year, reigning Big East defensive player of the year and the leader of his team in scoring (16.3 ppg), rebounding (7.3 rpg), assists (121) and blocks (77).

Now comes the peak of his college career against his old team. Just don’t call it a revenge game. It’s not.

Why did Zuby Ejiofor transfer from Kansas to St. John’s?

Ejiofor (pronounced “edge-o-for”) sat in a chair Saturday surrounded by about 15 reporters and photographers at Viejas Arena. They wanted to know the story again: What happened at Kansas and why did he choose St. John’s?

“I had a fun time at Kansas,” Ejiofor said. “I wouldn’t lie: I didn’t really want to leave. But I knew that in order for my future to keep progressing the way I wanted to go, that I had to probably look elsewhere for a bigger opportunity.”

Ejiofor played in 25 games for Kansas as a freshman, when he averaged only 5.1 minutes per game. The Jayhawks finished with a 28-8 record that season and lost in the second round of the tournament against Arkansas. Ejiofor played seven minutes in that game and tallied two rebounds, one block and no points.

PORTAL KING: How Rick Pitino experimented with transfer portal at St. John's — and won

Then Kansas brought in a big transfer from Michigan in May 2023: 7-foot-1 Hunter Dickinson, who made the move in pursuit of more money for his name, image and likeness (NIL).

One day later, Ejiofor announced he was transferring out. He simply wanted more playing time and didn’t see him getting much of it with Dickinson there.

So Ejiofor signed with St. John’s, where Pitino had just been hired and was remaking his roster with 10 transfer players out of a roster of 14, including Ejiofor.

“I don't think I've enjoyed coaching a player as much since 1987 when I coached Billy Donovan (at Providence),” Pitino said of Ejiofor. “And I'm going to miss him terribly.  And I'm just going to appreciate him while I have him.”

The Celtics went 4-0 since my last column, notching a solid win over the Warriors, and some uneven performances against the Wizards, Suns, and Grizzlies.

The negative way of looking at this is that the C’s really shouldn’t have struggled against the Grizzlies (24-45), and probably shouldn’t have had such a hard time with the Suns (39-31) considering they were hosting Phoenix.

However, there are positive aspects of these games to consider as well. The Celtics have struggled in clutch situations all season, as exemplified by their game against the Thunder the week prior. With Jayson Tatum back, they should be better, but they still need, for lack of a better term, clutch game reps. They need to figure out how they’re going to play out these situations now that they have Tatum back, and that’s the opportunity that games against Phoenix and Memphis presented.

Against Phoenix, Boston wilted in the first half of the fourth quarter, as the Suns went from being down by five at the start of the quarter to being up four with just over four minutes to play. From this point on, however, the Celtics locked down and the Suns did not score another field goal.

In Memphis, the Celtics struggled to put away a team that really had no business competing with them, but again, this enabled the Celtics to get some clutch game reps. The C’s entered the fourth quarter trailing by four, and Memphis managed to push that advantage as high as seven points, when the score hit 98-91 at the 9:08 mark.

The C’s caught up over the next two minutes, with Derrick White tying the game at the 7:21 mark. After two more lead changes, Jaylen Brown gave the Celtics the lead for good with 5:06 to go. That was the beginning of a 10-0 run that put the game out of reach.

Again, you can argue—not unreasonably, in my opinion—that it never should have come to this, but the bright side is that the C’s, on two occasions this week, got to learn how to close out tough games in convincing fashion. Against Phoenix, they relied on their defense, and against Memphis, it was their offense that carried the day.

Expansion on the table, finally

The NBA will be holding meetings starting on Monday to discuss expansion.

Previously, Adam Silver had indicated that the league was considering expansion in 2019, 2023, and 2025, but this is apparently the first time that the league has made expansion a subject of a Board of Governors meeting.

However, this upcoming meeting is not a meeting to award franchises, or even to approve expansion.

The only thing that’s officially being done at this meeting is obtaining a vote on whether the league should investigate expansion specifically to Las Vegas and Seattle.

Mind you, if there’s consensus on whether the league should investigate expansion to these cities, there’s basically consensus on whether the league will expand to these cities.

If you’d like to get a peek into how league meetings work, I invite you to read select chapters of Veeck as in Wreck, as well as The Hustler’s Handbook, in which Bill Veeck discusses his tussles with other Major League Baseball owners on matters such as relocation, sales of teams, and expansion.

The main takeaway you’ll get from Bill Veeck is that owners’ meetings work best when they are purely perfunctory affairs. Nobody wants surprises at these things, so there’s a great deal of time spent before meetings building consensus, lobbying, trading favors, and doing the sort of cajoling and wheeler-dealering that is what really keeps things moving forward.

Naturally, the stakes are a lot higher these days than in Veeck’s day. There’s a lot more money floating around and a lot more teams involved, but people are people, and people haven’t changed much over the past 70 years.

Adam Silver has said that relocation is not going to be on the agenda at this meeting, which is an interesting statement which implies that perhaps it should be.

So which franchises are on shaky ground? One is New Orleans. New Orleans is a small market, with a metro population of just over one million, and that’s riding on the thin edge of what you need to support a professional sports franchise, let alone two of them. There’s currently a conspiracy theory afoot suggesting that the owners are doing little to nothing to retain fans in order to build a case for the inevitability of relocation.

Memphis is another team in a tiny market that has some open questions about its home arena coming up. Their lease ends in 2028, and with a metro population on par with New Orleans, they’re in a similar situation with respect to their ability to support a pro team.

I suspect that the chief objection to expansion was a strong desire to relocate weaker teams to Seattle and Las Vegas in lieu of expansion which will not do much to shore up weaker teams and will ultimately dilute TV and sponsorship revenue for all existing teams.

If I’m going far out on a limb, I would suspect that some of the deal-brokering that has been going on to approve expansion has been support for relocation.

In any case, because expansion is on the agenda, it’s basically a fait accompli at this point. The owners pushing for expansion already have the votes they need in their pocket. What they had to do to get those votes remains to be seen.

Just keep your eyes open for the sudden appearance of news articles talking about how such-and-such a team is losing money or needs a new arena, or something similar.

Cade Cunningham and schedule length

The Piston’s loss of Cunningham to a collapsed lung has prompted a new surge of commentary on the length of the season, and its role in player health.

The league loves the money that this dense schedule brings in. With the league’s streaming deals in place, there are multiple NBA games every night of the week on nationally televised platforms. This is great for both owners and players—or at least it’s great for their wallets.

But nobody loves the seemingly increased toll that it’s taking on player health.

Players are doing far more than they did when the schedule was expanded to 82 games in the 1960s, and games are much more demanding. We are pushing the limits of what the human body is capable of, and we’re seeing the results of pushing those limits too far.

Unfortunately, there’s no good solution here. Or perhaps, I should say there is a good solution here, but nobody wants it. Nobody wants the season to be shortened, and everybody knows that the season is too long.

The irony here is that everyone in the league could easily afford to give up a bit of money in exchange for a shorter season. Basketball salaries are, on average, the highest among the four major sports, and for owners, fixed costs are a fractional aspect of the operating expenses they incur. Or, I should say, fixed costs outside of player salaries, which would be reduced under a shortened season.

Essentially, players and owners, who have more money than they need, are unwilling to give up some of it in order to assure that the game is healthier. Make of that what you will.

LeBron James set the record for the most regular-season games played in NBA history as he helped the Los Angeles Lakers to a dramatic buzzer-beating 105-104 victory against the Orlando Magic in his 1,612th outing.

James, 41, moved one clear of Robert Parish's 1997 record of 1,611 appearances, in a game the Lakers won when Luke Kennard scored a three-pointer with 0.6 seconds left.

"It just kind of happened. It was not on the list of things that I wanted to accomplish," said four-time NBA champion James.

"I wanted to be the best player in this league at some point. I wanted to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, to ever play this game. I wanted to be an NBA champion.

"I wanted to possibly win rookie of the year, make All-Star appearances, win a gold medal, win some MVPs - those were some of my goals.

"But some of the stuff that's just been happening over the course of the last few years has been super-duper cool."

James - who is the first player to take part in 23 consecutive NBA seasons and is also the NBA's record points scorer - contributed 12 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals as the Lakers beat Orlando for a ninth straight win.

The Lakers are third in the Western Conference, while Magic are eighth in the Eastern Conference.

"Availability, I've always wanted to be available to my team-mates," added James.

"It's a mental toll, trying to play a lot and being out there. I just give a lot of praise to the man above and [it's about] just loving the game and appreciating the game."

James was not the only player to achieve a milestone as Kevin Durant passed NBA legend Michael Jordan to go fifth in the all-time scoring list in regular-season games.

Durant moved to 32,294 - two ahead of Jordan - courtesy of a 27-point display for the Houston Rockets, who are fourth in the Western Conference, in their last gasp 123-122 win against the Miami Heat, who are ninth in the Eastern Conference.

"It means a lot," said Durant, who passed Jordan with a three-pointer in the fourth quarter.

"I'm grateful to be here and for this incredible journey it's been. I'm looking forward to continuing."

Elsewhere, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 40 points for the Oklahoma City Thunder as four players were ejected in his side's fiery 132-111 win against the Washington Wizards.

The Thunder's Ajay Mitchell, Jaylin Williams and Cason Wallace were ejected, along with Washington's Justin Champagnie, following a mass brawl near the end of the second quarter.

Reigning NBA champions Thunder remain top of the Western Conference, while the Wizards are one place off the bottom in 14th place.