NBA season's winners and losers so far

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The 2018-19 NBA regular season took a day off on Thursday for Thanksgiving. Each of the 30 teams has already played an average of 17.6 games, more than one-fifth of their total matches of 82. Some failed to live up to expectations, while some surprised and delighted their fans.

CGTN breaks down the performance of some of the underdogs and, on the flip side, the teams who seemed like a sure bet but failed to deliver.

Surprising team No.1: Memphis Grizzlies

The Memphis Grizzlies rank No.1 in the Western Conference with a record of 12 wins and seven losses. /VCG photo

If anyone had said before the season took off that the Memphis Grizzlies would be ranking No.1 in the Western Conference after 17 games, many would have laughed in disdain.

It was just not possible, or so it seemed. After all, the Grizzlies were the second worst team in the West and had lost 66 games. Their core team remained the same and the biggest improvement was 19-year-old rookie Jaren Jackson Jr.

Furthermore, while over two-thirds of the squad was speeding up and shot more three-pointers, Memphis kept their signature style of playing slow, physical games.

There are reasons for the team's remarkable performance so far. First, their two core stars, point-guard Mike Conley and center Marc Gasol are healthier and in better condition than last season.

Gasol remained a pillar in defense (defensive rating 98 points, No. 9 in the league) while making more contributions to the Grizzlies. He shot better than 65 percent of the league's players in stand-still shooting and made 39 percent of the average 4.5 three-point shots per game. He also delivered 3.8 assists per game which ranked him third among all centers.

Marc Gasol #33 continues his core role in defense for the Grizzlies. /VCG Photo

Meanwhile, Conley played a more important role in offense. He scored an average career-high of 5.6 free throws per game and delivered 6.1 assists while keeping his turnovers at 2.1.

Memphis are still the slowest team in NBA as they played only 95.1 paces on average, but that actually played in their advantage as others found it hard to speed up against them. When they defeated the Milwaukee Bucks 116-113 on November 14, Memphis managed to decrease the score of the league's best offense team by 8.4 points and lower their 3-point rates by 10.9 percent.

Mike Conley #11 has been making steady contributions to offense for Memphis. /VCG Photo

On the other side of the court, Memphis continued their good habit of limiting turnovers. They kept a turnover rate of 12 percent, the seventh best in the league. Fewer turnovers mean fewer opportunities for rivals to launch transitional attacks. Besides, Memphis are never interested in offensive rebounds and hence can pay more attention to running back on defense, further killing the chance of their rivals to score in transition.

Surprising team No.2: Milwaukee Bucks

The Milwaukee Bucks are the best offense team in the 2018-19 NBA regular season so far. /VCG Photo

The Bucks players were a strange team in the 2017-18 season. They had long limbs but thin bodies which put them at a disadvantage in rebounds, unable to protect the basket and totally lost outside the 3-point line.

Things changed in summer as they introduced Brook Lopez who was big enough to fill up the paint area and was able to make any team pay with his three-pointers. Milwaukee also signed back Ersan Ilyasova, a smart big man who could pass and shoot. More importantly, their new coach, Mike Budenholzer, has been known for teaching players how to work as a cohesive team, instead of a group of individuals doing their own thing.

The arrival of head coach Mike Budenholzer helps the Bucks set their own system of play. /VCG Photo

These changes helped the team win 13 of the 17 games they have played. They ranked after the Raptors only because they played two fewer games.

One of the reasons behind the improvement of the Bucks is that they finally gave what Antetokounmpo needed: enough shooters to stretch out for the Greek Freak to attack the restricted area.

When the defense cannot at least double-team Antetokounmpo, because each player has to watch out their own guarding target outside the 3-point line, the team will have to watch a 2.11-meter monster get away with two points, either by layup or dunk.

Giannis Antetokounmpo #34 is unstoppable after Milwaukee put four shooters on the court to stretch out for him. /VCG Photo

And the opposite is also true. If the defense decides to stop Antetokounmpo by putting two, or even three players in front of him, then they will have to pray that other Bucks players will miss those widely open three-pointers.

Disappointing team No.1: Boston Celtics

The Boston Celtics currently rank only No.8 in the Eastern Conference with a record of nine wins and nine losses. /VCG Photo

Thanks to their incredible performance in the 2017-18 playoffs and the return of Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving, the Boston Celtics were seen as the most hopeful team to challenge the Golden State Warriors. They are big enough to protect the rim and fast enough for small-ball play.

However, the Celtics now rank only No.8 in the Eastern Conference and have lost nine of their 18 games. A quick look at the team holds their offense accountable as it ranks 27th in the league.

Boston's offense leaves much to be desired.

First Hayward recovered from injury but has not regained his shooting as his FG rages and 3-pt rates are both under 30 percent. Meanwhile, he is still getting used to the team's style and such process hurts both his individual offense and that of the team.

Gordon Hayward is back but needs time to find his game back and get more familiar with the team. /VCG Photo

Second, as a group that relied on team offense, the Celtics would not benefit from Jason Tatum's increasing isolation attacks, especially when the 20-year-old could not maintain the same rates. Though his average scoring per game rose from 13.9 to 16.1 points, Tatum's efficiency slipped in practically every other category.

Tatum is not the worst problem compared with Jaylen Brown and Terry Rozier. The two are in the last year of their contract and hence need to present beautiful numbers so they will have more leverage to bargain for bigger contracts. However, such rashness took away their judgment, leading to a lot of questionable choices in offense and making them the most unreliable choices of Boston's major roster.

Jaylen Brown #7 and Terry Rozier #12 want to put down good numbers on the court for bigger contracts but they are not doing it right. /VCG Photo

Low efficiency in offense was not the Celtics' only problem. Though they are still the third best defense team in the NBA, Boston could still make the impregnable guard line in some moments of the game but they've failed to keep it throughout the whole 48 minutes. Since they don't have reliable offense, the team needs to nab key moments of the game to claim victory, meaning that one or two rounds of careless play will very likely lead to a loss in the end.

Disappointing team No.2: Golden State Warriors

The Golden State Warriors suffered four straight losses which pushed them out of top 4 of the Western Conference. /VCG Photo

It's always difficult to chase for the third straight championship. The Warriors have enough reasons for their current performance of 12 wins and seven losses: they lost three important big men – David West, JaVale McGee and Zaza Pachulia this summer; their most important improvement in the offseason, DeMarcus Cousins, is still recovering from injury; and two of their "Big Four", namely Stephen Curry and Draymond Green cannot play because of injury. They've proven in the 2017-18 playoffs that the team can still be unstoppable even after a sloppy regular season.

Then should the defending champion worry? The answer is yes. First, Golden State were weak in both offense and defense during the past four consecutive losses as they dropped only 95.5 points per game, the lowest in the league and made as few as 6.3 three-pointers with a poor average rate of 23.6 percent. By contrast, last season, they scored the league's highest 110.4 points per game while making 11.3 three-pointers with the highest rate of 39.1 percent.

Losing Stephen Curry (R) and Draymond Green (L) have hurt the Warriors a lot. /VCG Photo

Without Curry, the team lost a man who could make an average of 5.2 three-pointers with a 3-pt rate of 49.2 percent. Without Green, they did not have the man who could pass the ball after screen. However, neither of these could justify the catastrophic 3-pt rates of Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant in the last four games. While Thompson made only eight of his 34 three-point shots, Durant did worse as he put in only two out of 19 attempts.

The Warriors were an even bigger disaster in defense. During their four back-to-back losses, the team's average defensive rating was 115.2 points, the fourth worst in the league. They lost almost 40 percent of defense rebounds, giving 19 for second-chance points to their rivals. Simply speaking, the team was not in defense mode.

Head coach Steve Kerr needs to find out how to motivate his players to go for their third consecutive title. /VCG Photo

The Warriors are not a team that relies on super stars. Instead, they have established a system where everyone can make their own contribution. However, their role players apparently forgot how to carry bigger roles after playing comfortably for years along the best players and that must change. Offense takes talent but defense, at least, is more about focus and attitude.