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The Phoenix Suns began their six-game road trip in Milwaukee on Tuesday night and opened it the right way. A 129-point performance against the Bucks felt almost surreal when you think back a couple weeks. This is the same team that once struggled to scrape together 77 points in a loss. Granted, that stretch came during a period when injuries were chewing through the roster and the offense looked like it was searching for oxygen. What makes the night even funnier in the grand scheme of NBA chaos is what happened elsewhere across the league. One player scored 83 points on Tuesday night. That player was Miami’s Bam Adebayo. Basketball…she’s a funny sport.

It is always interesting when the Suns head to Milwaukee. That building still carries memories that linger, even though the calendar says it has been half a decade since those moments were fresh. And early in the game, it started to feel familiar again.

Giannis Antetokounmpo remains the same force he has always been. A freight train with a runway, barreling toward the rim with the kind of momentum that leaves defenders bracing for impact. If you happen to be standing in that path, the whistle usually follows. That has been part of the experience for years now. Trying to absorb contact from Giannis is almost treated like a violation. Step into the runway, and the call rarely goes your way. That reality has lived in Milwaukee for a long time.

That was then. This is now.

Some things in Milwaukee feel familiar, although one thing has clearly changed. The way the Bucks are built around Giannis does not feel nearly as stable as it once did. It is something I mentioned earlier this season. Yes, they still have that championship banner hanging in the rafters. However, the years that followed have not exactly produced a roster that feels cohesive around their superstar.

You look at this season and it feels like another one slipping through the cracks for Giannis. Injuries have played a role, although the supporting cast has never quite clicked into place. The coaching tenure of Doc Rivers has not brought the level of consistency people expected, either. You could see pieces of that Tuesday night.

Milwaukee had its moments. Players like Kyle Kuzma caught fire for stretches and kept the Bucks within striking distance. Although when the game slowed down and the fourth quarter arrived, Phoenix leaned into its identity.

Defense.

The Suns clamped down and held Milwaukee to 17 points in the final quarter. Possessions became uncomfortable. The pace slowed as the execution tightened. On the other end, the offense continued to produce balance. Three Suns finished with over 20 points for the second consecutive game. I do not even know where to begin digging to see when that last happened, although it speaks to the rhythm this group has started to find.

The result is Phoenix walking out of Milwaukee with another win, opening the road trip the right way. It marks their third straight victory and pushes them to 11 games over .500.

Momentum is beginning to build in Phoenix. That is not something you can currently say about the Bucks.

Bright Side Baller Season Standings

Booker was the engine. He was the gravity. He was the reason the Charlotte Hornets — one of the hottest teams in the league — finally saw their 10-game road winning streak evaporate in the Phoenix desert.

A 30 and 10 night against a team playing that kind of high-level basketball isn’t just a stat line. It is a statement. While we were all (rightfully) impressed with the 24 points that Collin Gillespie and Jalen Green poured in, and we loved every second of Rasheer Fleming’s 16-point breakout off the bench, everything flowed through Number One. He was the catalyst. He was the one bending the defense until it snapped.

Booker rightfully takes home his 15th Bright Side Baller of the season, securing 43% of your votes. That gives him two in a row and means he has accounted for 23.4% of all Baller awards handed out this year. Kudos to Fleming, too, who grabbed 37% of the vote. It was a well-deserved nod for the rookie’s career night.

Bright Side Baller Nominees

Game 65 against the Bucks. Here are your nominees:

Devin Booker
27 points (10-of-21, 4-of-7 3PT), 5 rebounds, 7 assists, 1 steal, 1 turnover, +12 +/-

Jalen Green
25 points (10-of-20, 3-of-10 3PT), 4 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 turnovers, +8 +/-

Royce O’Neale
21 points (7-of-11, 7-of-11 3PT), 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, 2 turnovers, +8 +/-

Collin Gillespie
12 points (4-of-9, 4-of-9 3PT), 9 rebounds, 9 assists, 2 steals, 2 turnovers, +11 +/-

Grayson Allen
12 points (4-of-8, 2-of-5 3PT), 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 turnover, +13 +/-

Oso Ighodaro
8 points (4-of-4), 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 turnover, +17 +/-

Start the tally!

They became catnip for night owls, must-see TV for the insomniacs among us.

Hours after ACC basketball hit the hay and after the Big 12 tucked itself into bed, the West Coast Conference, starring Mark Few’s Gonzaga Bulldogs, would treat our bleary eyes.

Gonzaga ‘Til Midnight — or beyond, depending on your time zone — became the college hoops predecessor to Pac-12 After Dark.

'It's not broken' — yet: Why March Madness expansion would punish Cinderellas

Toppmeyer: March Madness loses its first Cinderella after 6 games in 6 days

It started in earnest in 2001, when ESPN struck a deal with the WCC. By then, the Zags were already of “The slipper still fits!” fame.

Gonzaga served up such late-night ESPN fare as playing St. John’s at midnight Eastern on Thanksgiving night in the ’01 Great Alaska Shootout (RIP), the perfect pairing for your third slice of pumpkin pie.

Gonzaga beat the Johnnies, of course, because Zags basketball is good any time of day, but it’s spectacular in the wee hours.

Trading sleep for hoops meant watching Few’s assembly line of stars. Dan Dickau. Ronny Turiaf. Kelly Olynyk. Rui Hachimura. Drew Timme. Present-day Graham Ike.

And who could forget Mr. Mustache himself, Adam Morrison, the only thing finer in 2006 than J.J. Redick?

The casuals didn’t catch their annual glimpse of Gonzaga until March Madness. The diehards and the sleep-deprived had a catalogue of film on them by then. They watched the WCC grow up alongside Gonzaga.

As BYU cycled in and then out of the league, the WCC maintained staying power to the point it regularly sends multiple teams to the NCAA Tournament. The Gonzaga-Saint Mary’s series blossomed into one of the best rivalries anywhere on the Pacific Coast.

No matter how sturdy the WCC became in any given year, Gonzaga kept showing up in the conference tournament finals.

Death. Taxes. Gonzaga cutting down WCC nets on a weeknight in early March.

Conference realignment consumes all things holy in the end, and Gonzaga’s majestic, nocturnal run in the WCC concluded this season — but not before one last celebration.

Gonzaga beat Santa Clara in the WCC final, 79-68 on Tuesday, because how else was this supposed to end but with Few celebrating his 21st conference tournament title?

“We’re 30-3 now," Few said of his team's record entering March Madness, where the Bulldogs are a projected 3-seed, "which is a hell of a record, a hell of a year."

And not finished yet. Just done with the WCC.

Mark Few exits WCC with another March Madness bid

Gonzaga will move next season into the Pac-Whatever Conference, a Pac-12 cheap-fake.

The decades-long WCC-Gonzaga union provided a runway for Few to go 56-6 in WCC tournament games.

Pause, for a moment, and marvel at that record.

I don’t care the league is filled with a bunch of private California schools with smallish enrollments instead of Duke and North Carolina or Kansas and Arizona, the WCC is no joke, and winning 56 times in 62 tries against teams playing for their shot at a March Madness ticket is serious dominance.

Gonzaga rules West Coast Conference, to the end

This team won’t go down as Few’s most electric, but you wouldn’t have known that with the way Gonzaga rallied after Santa Clara dominated the first half.

“It’s a special feeling to go out the right way — on top,” Ike, Gonzaga’s star, told reporters, with a WCC champions hat perched on his head. “Ultimately, we ended where we started this … We started off with championships. That team and those teams that came before us, we just wanted to continue the success that they had.”

Ike must have remembered at halftime he was the best player in the building. He finished with 15 points on perfect shooting. Few was so pleased he publicly stumped for his senior big man’s All-America bona fides.

“He has absolutely, unequivocally, carried us,” Few said on ESPN afterward.

Gonzaga's got its very own Super Mario, too. That's Mario Saint-Supery, who went off for six 3-pointers and 21 points.

The real story, though, was the same as it's been all year for Gonzaga: Its defense ruled the day, leaving Santa Clara on the NCAA bubble, although in Few’s eyes the Broncos ought to be a slam-dunk selection alongside Saint Mary’s. That’d be good for three WCC bids for the fourth time since 2008 and probably the last time for a while, with Gonzaga leaving.

Gonzaga’s conference departure ranks nowhere near the worst sin of realignment. It’s something of an upset the WCC managed to hang on for so long to this team that outgrew the Cinderella label long ago. Surely, the Zags will keep playing late-night tipoffs in their new home. Networks need late-night programming, and Gonzaga is a reliable supplier.

Gonzaga let the night owls off easy in this WCC swan song. It wasn’t even midnight yet on the East Coast when Few donned the postgame headset for a chat with Scott Van Pelt.

Still, the Las Vegas sun was long gone, and night had replaced it. To the very end, Gonzaga ruled the West Coast after dark.

Blake Toppmeyer is a columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Gonzaga ruled late-night TV, to very end of its WCC basketball days

Wham, Bam, pfft.

Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo scored 83 points Tuesday night, the second most in an NBA game in history, surpassing Kobe Bryant’s iconic 81 points two decades ago.

Congrats to Adebayo, I guess.

The way it went down was highly questionable. Nothing romantic or real about it. We thought flopping and foul-baiting made for unethical hoops, but those are but basketball misdemeanors; Adebayo’s big night was felonious.

Read more:Remembering the night Kobe Bryant scored 81 points

Tuesday’s game featured intentional clock-stopping, game-extending fouls by the Heat. And it was ripe with free-throw-abetting fouls by the Washington Wizards, an actively tanking team that got itself blown out, 150-129.

So, no. Bryant’s necessary, organic 81 this was not. The Lakers trailed that game against the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 22, 2006 at halftime and actually needed Kobe’s 55 second-half points to pull away for the win.

The Heat were up by as many as 28 points in the fourth quarter with Adebayo continuing to play pop-a-shot in the historic farce — which also moved him past LeBron James, whose 61 points in 2014 stood as Miami’s previous franchise record.

Now a Laker, LeBron cheered the effort on X, writing: “BAM BAM BAM” with a bunch of fire emojis.

BAM BAM BAM 💥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

— LeBron James (@KingJames) March 11, 2026

Lakers fans were not as fired up, but they were hot, booing when news of Adebayo’s 83 points was delivered inside Crypto.com Arena before the Lakers’ 120-106 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves.

“Honestly, it hurts,” said Los Angeles’ Erik Ortiz, who was 6 years old when Bryant had his 81-point night. “And it’s kind of messed up. All those free throws? No disrespect, but it didn’t feel earned.”

“A disrespect to the game,” said Robert Horry, who played with Bryant in L.A. for seven seasons. “To me, don’t cheat the game. If you’re gonna play like that, that’s cheating the game.”

“But,” Horry added, diplomatically, “scoring 83 points is still hard regardless if you cheat the game or not.”

JJ Redick offered his most diplomatic two cents: “It’s incredible what he was able to do.”

The Lakers’ coach described walking in and seeing the Heat leading with three minutes left, on the verge of winning their sixth consecutive game and Adebayo on the free-throw line (naturally).

“I said to my coaching staff, ‘Ah, the Heat are rolling.’ And they kind of looked at each other and they were like, ‘Are you kidding right now? No, Bam has 77!’ I watched the last three minutes and … that was a different type of basketball.”

Adebayo scored 31 points in the first quarter, 12 in the second and 19 in the third — a legitimately impressive career-high 62 points, and in just three quarters. Precisely the same number of points that Kobe had after three quarters when coach Phil Jackson pulled him from a blowout win against Dallas a few weeks before he dropped 81.

But on Tuesday, Adebayo kept going, for no reason but to pad his points tally in pursuit of Kobe.

If only Adebayo, well respected by peers and fans alike, could’ve taken the baton from his basketball hero while playing regular old basketball. Lakers fans know ball; they wouldn’t have held it against him, they would have saluted.

But Adebayo shot 3 for 8 from the field in the final period, including 1 for 6 from three-point range. And he went 14 for 16 at the line in the final frame, bringing his free-throw shooting total to a historic 36 for 43 from the charity stripe, so aptly named for this game.

There’s magic, and then there are magic tricks, manufactured illusions, sleight-of-hand acts of pseudo-sorcery. That’s how we should remember Adebayo’s 83. That’s how we should explain that game to our children and grandchildren.

It isn’t as though Kobe’s 81-point output wasn’t going to be eclipsed. It was only a matter of time, especially considering the offensive emphasis in today’s NBA.

In 2024, then-Maverick Luka Doncic scored 73 points in a 148-143 win against the Atlanta Hawks. But Doncic went just 15 of 16 from the free-throw line that night, and 25 for 33 from the field, including 8 of 13 from behind the arc.

Read more:Swanson: The Lakers are the wrong kind of interesting amid relentless fan scrutiny

Or imagine, going forward, what 7-foot-4 center Victor Wembanyama could be capable of if the San Antonio Spurs force-feed him offensively for a full game.

But records are made to be broken, not stolen. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra told reporters he was “caught up in the moment like everyone else, and I didn’t want to get in the way.”

Late Lakers owner Jerry Buss once described Kobe’s 81-point “like watching a miracle.”

Adebayo’s output felt more mechanical than ethereal. Artificial and impure, and achieved by doing something only slightly resembling basketball.

Lakers fans were right: Boo.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Keldon Johnson is the longest tenured member of the San Antonio Spurs. Last night he hit his 657th three-pointer, moving him past Matt Bonner into 6th all-time for the Silver & Black.

Johnson, now in his seventh NBA season, has carned himself a role that has elevated him into a contender for Sixth Man of the Year. His three-point shooting, defensive acumen, and ability to pushi himself into the paint for high-percentage layups while coming off the bench are an essential facet to the Spurs success.

Johnson is now five threes for passing Bruce Bowen. Devin Vassell is currently holds the fourth ranking with over 250 threes to catch Danny Green and a nother 212 beyond that to reach Patty Mills, whose 1171 is second only to Manu Ginobili, whose 1495 made threes is safe for years to come.

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