We are a quarter of the way into the NBA season and we now have a pretty good sense of who most teams are. Now we also get to see how teams perform under a little bit of pressure with the NBA Cup, and here we talk about the teams facing it.

1. Oklahoma City Thunder

(17-1, last week No. 1)

Oklahoma City’s defense hasn’t just been good this season, it’s been suffocating — OKC’s 103 defensive rating is 7 points better than second-place Detroit. Nobody is close to them. While that’s a team effort — they play defense on a string and have a wealth of quality perimeter defenders — Chet Holmgren and his rim protection could be rewarded. He is going to get mentioned in Defensive Player of the Year conversations already, and if Victor Wembanyama can’t reach the 65-game threshold set by the league

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