Milwaukee Bucks

After monitoring the NBA awards races all season, Nekias Duncan shares his final selections for DPOY, ROY, MIP, 6MOY and more.

Nekias Duncan's 2022-23 NBA award selections: DPOY, 6MOY, MIP, more

Heading into the weekend, I figured I'd followed the same script as the other two award pieces. Fill out and&nbsp; complete my (fake) ballot, sprinkle in some extra details or stray thoughts to account for questions that may pop up, then go about my business.
I dropped my "final rough draft" on Friday's episode of <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/podcasts/the-dunker-spot" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Dunker Spot</a>, though I gave myself a weekend's worth of wiggle room to make any last-second changes. In typical fashion, I watched, researched and ultimately thought myself into a headache. The result of that is this piece: A separate article detailing where and how I landed on the 2022-23 NBA Most Valuable Player, with a follow-up article coming to reveal the rest of my (fake) ballot.
Throughout MVP discourse, many people &mdash; voters or people like me who wish they could vote &mdash; have made it a point to mention how tough it is. To highlight how the top three &mdash; Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid and Giannis Antetokounmpo &mdash; are all worthy candidates to win, and that we shouldn't be all that upset by who wins. There's truth to that.
(You, savvy reader and/or listener, can also tell when someone is genuinely perplexed vs. when they're throwing in that platitude in an effort to avoid smoke for his/her opinion. We can be real here.)
I landed in the former camp. To refresh your memory, this is where I landed at the <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/2022-23-nba-award-picks-mvp-dpoy-rookie-sixth-man-most-improved-all-league-defensive-teams-volume-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">beginning of March</a>:
Previous order (through Mar.1): 
<ol>
<li>Nikola Jokic (Previously No. 3)</li>
<li>Giannis Antetokounmpo (Previously No. 2)</li>
<li>Joel Embiid (Previously Honorable Mention, Record)</li>
<li>Jayson Tatum (Previously No. 1)</li>
<li>Luka Doncic (Previously No. 5)</li>
</ol>
This is where I am right now on April 11 with the regular season over:
<ol>
<li>Joel Embiid (Previously No. 3) </li>
<li>Giannis Antetokounmpo (Previously No. 2)</li>
<li>Nikola Jokic (Previously No. 1)</li>
<li>Jayson Tatum (Previously No. 4)</li>
<li>Domantas Sabonis (Previously Honorable Mention, Not As Good As Luka Doncic)</li>
</ol>
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With all due respect to Tatum and Sabonis, there isn't much to discuss with their placements.
Tatum was a two-way ironman for a team that flirted with the best record in the NBA. At full tilt, the Boston Celtics may very well be the best team in the league. Tatum became the first Celtic to average over 30 points per game for a season &mdash; a mind-blowing stat considering their history. Career-high averages in rebounds (8.8) and assists (4.6) are also nice. If you'd like to use Tatum's availability (and overall malleability) to argue for him to be higher, you can; it just wouldn't be my&nbsp;case.&nbsp;
Sabonis was the best player on the Western Conference's most (surprisingly) consistent team, acting as the hub of the NBA's most dangerous offense. He became just the fourth player in NBA history to average at least 19 points, 12 rebounds and 7 assists in a season; add in his 61.5% clip from the field (63.9% on twos, 37.3% on a low volume of threes), and the list shrinks to him and Wilt Chamberlain.&nbsp;
The battle for MVP ultimately became a three-man race in 2023 &mdash; if you recall, Tatum was my MVP <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/2022-23-nba-early-season-award-picks-mvp-dpoy-rookie-sixth-man-most-improved-all-league-defensive-teams" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in my first check-in</a> from mid-December &mdash; between Embiid, Giannis and Jokic.
There's more to discuss with Jokic, who nearly became the first center in NBA history to average a triple-double. Even that sells his season short; Jokic just logged the most efficient season in NBA history among players to average at least 20 points.
If Jokic and the Denver Nuggets hadn't, by their standards, sputtered to the finish line, he likely would've maintained the lead he had in my second check-in and gotten my fictitious vote. That he was already having a (much) worse defensive season than Embiid and Giannis and managed to go backwards over this recent stretch &mdash; particularly the <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/how-concerned-should-we-be-about-the-denver-nuggets" target="_blank" rel="noopener">middle portion of March</a> &mdash; made it tough for me in a race this close.
There was even a quieter dip in Jokic's production offensively, though he was still absurd overall.
<ul>
<li>Dec. 14 through Feb. 28 (32 games): 25.2 points on 71.2% True Shooting, 10.7 assists (3.7 turnovers)</li>
<li>From March 1 onward (14 games): 24.0 points on 69.6% True Shooting, 9.1 assists (3.6 turnovers)</li>
</ul>
That being said, it was a ridiculous season from Jokic. He was still the best offensive player in the league for me. The Nuggets showcased, on multiple occasions, that they didn't quite know how to function without him. Even with the recent "slippage," he paced the league in many advanced metrics. A worthy choice, just ultimately not my choice.
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From here, let's talk about Embiid vs Giannis for a bit. Here are a handful of Embiid's stat lines since the beginning of March:
<ul>
<li>52-13-6 (plus 2 blocks) in a win vs. the Celtics</li>
<li>46-9-8-2-1 in a loss vs. the Warriors</li>
<li>36-18 (plus 4 blocks) in a win vs. the Cavaliers</li>
<li>31-6-10 in a win vs. the Bucks</li>
<li>39-7-4-1-3 in a win vs. the Timberwolves</li>
</ul>
This ignores the 37 and 16 against Chicago; the 42-on-16-shots affair against the Pacers; the 38-14-5 he slapped up against the Hornets. Of the 18 games Embiid played during this stretch, he scored 30 or more 12 times and the Philadelphia 76ers went 12-6 in those contests. He fell below 20 points once &mdash; 12-7-7 in 16 first-half minutes against the Bulls before sitting the second half of that blowout for precautionary reasons. There's a rule about assuming, but it'd be fair to project him putting up a nutty stat line in that game had he played the second half.
There just hasn't been a consistent answer for this guy all year. Crowding the paint only does so much when he's willing to shoot over you &mdash; and do so at a high clip. Doubling can only do so much when he's grown as a passer &mdash; the Sixers scored at an elite rate on possessions that Embiid passed out of a post-double team (1.17 PPP) or isolation double (1.14 PPP), per Second Spectrum &mdash; and can <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nba/2023/3/31/23664110/joel-embiid-76ers-mvp-race" target="_blank" rel="noopener">brow-beat them</a> when necessary.&nbsp;
He's taken over half of his shots from mid-range this season and drilled them at a 49% clip. He drew 104 fouls in the mid-range area, per Cleaning The Glass; do you know how hard it is to have Embiid's shot profile and manage to get fouled as often as he does? It's insane stuff and speaks to the guard-like ability he has in this range.&nbsp;
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The defense has waxed and waned over the closing stretch, but the Sixers ended the year with a 94.5 half-court defensive rating with Embiid on the floor, per Cleaning The Glass; that's equivalent to the second-best half-court D in the NBA, and is a mark that shouldn't be that high considering Philly's overall roster construction.
Even "Lax Embiid" can goad opponents into pull-ups &mdash; though that's something worth keeping an eye on as the postseason hits. Engaged Embiid &mdash; the guy that can blow stuff up at the level of the screen and still strut back to challenge shots at the rim &mdash; is, and has been, a world-ender.
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0px; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.250%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; overflow: hidden;" src="https://streamable.com/e/cot2l0" width="100%" height="325" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" data-mce-fragment="1"></iframe></div>
The TLDR summary: Embiid had a heavy load to carry on both ends of the floor, <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/nba-news-feature-philadelphia-76ers-sixers-joel-embiid-mvp-race-james-harden-tyrese-maxey" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dominated offensively and anchored a high-level defense while flashing an even higher level when fully locked in</a>. Having a 65% win rate in his games helped; the advanced metrics also paint him in a favorable light.
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Of course, we can't lose sight of the work Giannis did in a less-than-ideal context at the beginning of the year. He was without his best pick-and-roll partner in Khris Middleton and didn't always have Jrue Holiday by his side. It's not a coincidence that, once those two were in the lineup with Giannis more consistently, the Milwaukee Bucks (and Giannis) took off.
Giannis remained a battering ram at the rim, drawing shooting fouls on a career-best 24.6% of his shot attempts this year, per Cleaning The Glass. His mark of 12.3 free throw attempts per game led the NBA. Giannis' downhill passing also remained a legitimate weapon; his rate of kick-out passes rose to career-high levels (17.1 per 100 possessions), while his turnover rate on total passes (1.57%) was his lowest in three seasons, per Second Spectrum.
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There was an obvious gap between Embiid and Giannis in points (33.1 vs. 31.1) and a larger one in efficiency (Embiid's 65.5% TS vs. Giannis' 60.7% TS). Again, it's hard to overstate the difference in shooting ability that the two displayed. Embiid was a monster from mid-range compared to Giannis' clip (31.8%), knocked down a higher percentage of threes (33.0% vs. 27.5%) and shot much better from the line (85.7% vs. 64.5%).
Milwaukee faithful would likely point to the context for the two, particularly what Giannis dealt with at the beginning of the year sans Middleton &mdash; and at times, with no Holiday. There's some credence to that.&nbsp;
How's this for a did-you-know: The Sixers logged a paltry 111.4 offensive rating in 333 minutes with Embiid on the floor without James Harden and Tyrese Maxey; the Bucks were slightly better &mdash; a 113.8 offensive rating in nearly double the sample (643 minutes) &mdash; with Giannis on the floor without Holiday and Middleton.
The scoring breakdown in those minutes:
<ul>
<li>Giannis: 608 points (34.0 points per 36 minutes), 57.7% on twos, 26.2% on threes, 60.3% TS</li>
<li>Embiid: 302 points (32.6 per 36), 51.4% on twos, 22.2% on threes, 58.4% TS</li>
</ul>
The playmaking still leans towards Giannis:
<ul>
<li>Giannis: 145 assists (8.1 per 36), 94 turnovers (5.3 per 36)</li>
<li>Embiid: 63 assists (6.8 per 36), 44 turnovers (4.8 per 36)</li>
</ul>
If you only filter for the minutes the two played with and without their primary ball-handler &mdash; <a href="https://www.pbpstats.com/wowy-combos/nba?TeamId=1610612755&amp;Season=2022-23&amp;SeasonType=Regular%2BSeason&amp;PlayerIds=203954,201935" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Harden for Embiid</a>, <a href="https://www.pbpstats.com/wowy-combos/nba?TeamId=1610612749&amp;Season=2022-23&amp;SeasonType=Regular%2BSeason&amp;PlayerIds=203507,201950" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Holiday for Giannis</a> &mdash; some fun stuff is revealed, namely:
<ul>
<li>The Bucks' offense burned a little brighter with Giannis and Holiday (123.9 ORTG) compared to the Sixers pairing (123.2 ORTG).</li>
<li>The Sixers still operated at a top-10 rate when Embiid played without Harden (117.8, would rank No. 7); the same could not be said for Giannis without Holiday (113.0, would rank No. 26).</li>
</ul>
Zooming out, the defense is where things got tight for me.
Full disclosure: On Friday's pod, I listed Embiid as my choice. By Sunday morning, I was ready to flip to Giannis. And that was before Bleacher Report's Chris Haynes <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisBHaynes/status/1645111264623095808?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dropped his exclusive sit-down interview</a> with the 2021 NBA champion, surprisingly (and honestly, refreshingly) dipping into his, "Let's not get carried away, I still do this" bag. The Sixers tailing off defensively over the past couple of weeks really opened the door.
Giannis has been elite this year, an omnipresent deterrent lurking around the weak side. When challenged at the rim, opponents haven't had much success; they converted just 55.4% of their shots at the rim against Giannis, <a href="https://www.nba.com/stats/players/defensive-impact?CF=GP*GE*49:DEF_RIM_FGA*GE*4&amp;dir=A&amp;sort=DEF_RIM_FG_PCT" target="_blank" rel="noopener">which ranks 10th among 51 players</a> to defend at least four shots per contest.
But of that 51-player group, Giannis ranked 40th in shots defended per game. Embiid was third and Jokic was fourth; that obviously speaks to how willing teams were to attack the latter, but the discrepancy is at least kinda funny when considering the scheme differences between the two.&nbsp;
Embiid ranked 12th in contested shots per game (10.3). Giannis ranked 44th (6.6); his teammate, Brook Lopez, was first (17.5) by a comically large margin.
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That led me down the Giannis-at-the-5 rabbit hole, which revealed that the Bucks were a middling defense (114.2 DRTG, would rank 13th) with Giannis on the floor without Lopez, per Cleaning The Glass. When you also&nbsp;remove Bobby Portis from the equation, however, that drops to a would-be-league-leading 104.5 DRTG in nearly 850 possessions.
There were other searches I did that I won't bore you with, such as Giannis without Holiday and Lopez (116.7 DRTG in 1,034 possessions) compared to Embiid without De'Anthony Melton and PJ Tucker (111.8 DRTG in 561 possessions).
(It's worth noting that such a query left the Jevon Carter minutes on the table for Giannis, as it did the pre-trade Matisse Thybulle minutes for Embiid.)
Ultimately, the fundamental question became this: Do you value Giannis being better in a secondary rim-protecting role than Embiid with his primary responsibilities, or do you give Embiid the edge for having to carry more responsibility on that end?
You're more than welcome to disagree, but I landed on the responsibility angle.
Embiid getting this&nbsp;team to a top-10 finish defensively was impressive. Having the offensive year he had, on the shot diet he lived on, was also wildly impressive. Only Stephen Curry and 22 games of 1982-83 Adrian Dantley have posted more efficient 30-point seasons than Embiid, and the Sixers big man averaged more points than both of them.
I geniunely don't think you could go wrong with any of these three. Jokic's team performed better with him on the floor than Giannis or Embiid; Giannis paced both guys in wins and win percentage in addition to his excellence.
The combination of production, efficiency, winning and responsibility gave Embiid the narrow win for me.

Nekias Duncan narrows down his final candidates for the 2022-23 NBA MVP and picks the league's most valuable player.

Nekias Duncan's 2022-23 NBA award selections: Who wins MVP?

Nekias Duncan checks back in with this year's NBA award races with an in-depth look at who leads the pack through the end of February.

2022-23 NBA award front-runners Vol. 2: MVP, DPOY, ROY, more

Nekias Duncan takes an early look at this year's NBA award races with an in-depth look at who leads the pack through mid-December.

Nekias Duncan's 2022-23 NBA award front-runners: MVP, DPOY, ROY, more

In 2022, the end of the season might feel like 1978.
If we&rsquo;re lucky.
Let&rsquo;s go back to the greatest scoring race in NBA history, one that was decided 44 years ago, the epic to-the-last-day battle between David Thompson and George Gervin.
Each had a game on April 9, 1978, that season&rsquo;s final day. Thompson&rsquo;s game was first; he scored 73 points for the Denver Nuggets to take the scoring lead. Gervin, playing a few hours later, would need 58 points to reclaim the top spot.
He scored 63 for the San Antonio Spurs. The crown was his, 27.22 points to 27.15 for Thompson.
Imagine such a scene playing out this season on April 10 &mdash; the scoring title once again going down to the season&rsquo;s final day. Only this time, with three players in the race.
It could happen.
Entering Tuesday, the NBA finds itself on pace for the closest three-man scoring race in league history. LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers is atop the list averaging 29.96 points (which would round up to 30.0), Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers is second at 29.83, and Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks is third at 29.80.
The last time a race ended up that close between the top three spots was, well, never. The closest three-way race was in 1985-86, when Dominique Wilkins averaged 30.3 points &mdash; a half-point better than both Adrian Dantley and Alex English. And a decade ago, Kevin Durant, then with Oklahoma City, held off the Lakers&rsquo; Kobe Bryant by one-tenth of a point, 28.0 to 27.9 for the second-closest head-to-head race ever.
Obviously, the numbers will change. Embiid might get a game or two more off down the stretch to rest his body. If the 76ers have nothing to play for on the season&rsquo;s final day, one wouldn&rsquo;t expect him out there with only a scoring title at stake. Same goes for Antetokounmpo; if the Bucks are locked into a seed, it would seem foolish for Milwaukee to play the reigning NBA Finals MVP much, if at all. And the Lakers&rsquo; only path to the playoffs is through the play-in, which means James might be called upon to play big minutes &mdash; and potentially put up big numbers &mdash; all the way to the end.
&ldquo;At the end of the day,&rdquo; James said, &ldquo;all I care about is wins and losses.&rdquo;
A scoring race, though, would add just an extra dimension to the end of the season, just another reason to tune in and pay attention to what&rsquo;s happening.
The Western Conference race will long be over by then; realistically, it is now, since there&rsquo;s no way barring unthinkable, cataclysmic collapse that Phoenix won&rsquo;t be the No. 1 seed. The Eastern Conference race is considerably tighter, and the potential is quite high that regardless of who ends up seeded where the first-round series on that half of the bracket will be slugfests.
But anything involving James is certain to be intriguing. Same goes with Antetokounmpo. Same goes with Embiid. Put them together, and the intrigue levels skyrocket.
The only downside to all of this is that it could have been a four-man race.
Brooklyn&rsquo;s Durant is fourth in the league in scoring, four-tenths behind James and two-tenths behind Antetokounmpo and Embiid at 29.6 per game. But Durant basically can&rsquo;t win the scoring title since he won&rsquo;t meet the NBA&rsquo;s minimum &mdash; 58 games in an 82-game season &mdash; to qualify.
So, unless somebody gets really, really hot down the stretch, the scoring race is down to three.
Trae Young, Luka Doncic, DeMar DeRozan, Ja Morant and Jayson Tatum are all within 3.0 points of James&rsquo; average right now (as is Kyrie Irving, who obviously won&rsquo;t meet the minimum games-played threshold). If any of those guys go on an absolute spree &mdash; not unheard of in this day and age &mdash; they could make a run at the title as well.
The potential is there for a thrilling finish, just like the league had in 1978.
It would be the perfect appetizer to the playoffs.

Entering Tuesday, the NBA finds itself on pace for the closest three-man scoring race in league history.

Analysis: NBA scoring race could end up as one for the ages

This is excerpt from Jon Finkel&rsquo;s new book &ldquo;Windmills &amp; Tomahawks: Nine Chapters on Dominique Wilkins,&rdquo; which is available Amazon <a href="https://amzn.to/3rmFUEs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a> or as a PDF on Gumroad <a href="https://jonfinkel.gumroad.com/l/ztFyb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>. 
You know those moments in boxing matches when you can tell by the way a fighter is sitting in his corner that he&rsquo;s out of gas? His shoulders are rounded. He&rsquo;s sweaty but somehow dry-looking. His legs are heavy and far apart.
As his chest heaves and the trainer screams &ldquo;stick and move&rdquo; while smothering his eyebrows with Vaseline, the fighter stares straight ahead. He&rsquo;s not dazed, but he&rsquo;s not all there either. Then the bell rings and he rises, summoning the will to roll back into the ring.
This was Dominique Wilkins heading into the fourth quarter of game No. 81 of the 1985-86 NBA season. &rsquo;Nique was in a decimal-point duel with the Utah Jazz&rsquo;s Adrian Dantley and the Denver Nuggets&rsquo; Alex English for the season scoring title. Dantley was sitting at 29.83 points per game and English at 29.8, mere tenths of a point from crossing that magical 30-points-per-game threshold and, in this case, winning the scoring crown.
Dantley was, in today&rsquo;s parlance, a bucket. The guy averaged 30 points per game for four-straight seasons from 1981 to 1984. He&rsquo;d won two NBA scoring titles and had been in the top five several times. Alex English, a.k.a. &ldquo;The Blade,&rdquo; led the league in scoring in 1983. He, too, was a bucket.
What this means is that heading into the final few games of the &rsquo;86 season, &rsquo;Nique wasn&rsquo;t trading jabs with some chumps for the scoring title &mdash; he was battling heavyweight scoring champions.
Accordingly, he knew exactly where he stood heading into that 81st game against the New Jersey Nets. He knew what he had, and he knew what he needed to grab the scoring crown. The only people standing in his way were 6-foot-11, 250-pound Mike Gminski; 6-foot-9, 230-pound Jeff Turner; 6-foot-8, 250-pound Buck Williams, and the rest of the Nets frontcourt.
Didn&rsquo;t matter.
Throughout the &rsquo;86 season, Dominique Wilkins had seen a million defenders&hellip; and he&rsquo;d dunked &rsquo;em all. (h/t Bon Jovi).
He scored 32 in the season opener against the Washington Bullets and 40 in the fourth game against the Boston Celtics. He cruised at altitude through most of November, bouncing between 30-point games and 20-point games, and then hit the stratosphere starting in December. He had 10 games of 30 points or more from early December to early January, including this run from December 19 to January 7 with games of 29, 49, 35, 36, 32, 27, and 37 points.
The 49-point game came against the Houston Rockets, back when Hakeem Olajuwon was Akeem. The final bucket in that contest was a game-winning three-pointer with eight seconds left. It was a career high for Wilkins at the time, and it nudged him into third place in the scoring race behind English and Dantley.
&ldquo;If that&rsquo;s not an All-Star performance, I want to see the other guys in the league,&rdquo; Hawks coach Mike Fratello said.
After a two-game &ldquo;drought&rdquo; of scoring in the mid-20s following that game-winner, Wilkins laid the smack down in January, crushing defenses like Bruce Lee&rsquo;s fist through slabs of concrete. Bam. Bam. Bam.
Thirty-six against the Celtics.
Thirty-three against the Bucks.
Thirty-six against the Knicks.
Thirty-five against the Warriors.
Thirty-eight against the Nets.
The run included scoring 30-plus points in nine of 11 games and was capped off by setting the Arco Arena record with 43 points against the Sacramento Kings on February 13.
By early 1986, &rsquo;Nique was just about done polishing off his superstar CV. He&rsquo;d already won the dunk contest in &rsquo;85. He won the NBA&rsquo;s Player of the Month for January of &rsquo;86. He was named to his first All-Star game and scored 13 points in 17 minutes playing alongside his idol, Dr. J.
Check. Check. Check.
With two months to go, Wilkins was in third place in the scoring race behind English and Dantley, and to paraphrase Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men, he wanted that scoring title&mdash;he needed that scoring title.
Everyone who followed basketball knew that Wilkins could dunk and score, but to officially be the league&rsquo;s best dunker AND best scorer &mdash; damn, that was rarified air. Up to that point, that distinction had been occupied by one man: Julius Erving. (Yeah, I know Dr. J&rsquo;s scoring titles were in the ABA&hellip; so what.)
And there was another wrinkle.
After winning a measly 34 games in &rsquo;85, the Hawks were staring down the barrel of a potential 50-win season, one of only a handful of times the franchise had a legitimate shot of reaching that number since the team moved to Atlanta.
Add it all up and, beginning on February 21, 1986, Dominique Wilkins cracked his knuckles, rolled his shoulders, bounced his head from side to side and went full Mortal Kombat on the entire NBA.
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://cdn.basketballnews.com/images/story/body/ns_lg.jpg" alt="" width="690" height="346" />
Thirty-point games were nothing. Thirty-five-point games became normal. Forty-point games seemed to happen every week.
One night he&rsquo;d drop 38 on the Pacers, and a few days later he&rsquo;d hit the Spurs for 36. In a rare home-and-home against the 76ers in early March, he dropped 32 in the first game and 37 in the second game.
Was he tired yet?
No.
Two nights later he pasted the Bulls for 42. It was a tight game, but the Hawks won 112-108, despite Chicago throwing everything at Dominique.
&ldquo;They were really pushing me inside and played hard,&rdquo; he said afterward. &ldquo;Those 42 points, yep, we needed every one of them.&rdquo;
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Seven days later, he hit up the Celtics for 42 in a tough loss. The &ldquo;L&rdquo; halted a feel-good winning run for the Hawks that mirrored Dominique&rsquo;s onslaught. The team had won 12 of 13 games since the All-Star break and was positioning itself nicely for a top playoff spot.
At the beginning of April, the Hawks were four wins away from hitting fifty, and &rsquo;Nique was neck-and-neck-and-neck with English and Dantley for the scoring title.
Both of his goals were in his grasp.
Could he go up a level?
Would he go up a level?
Yes and yes.
On April 4 and 5, the NBA scoring lead changed hands for the 17th and 18th times that season. English had been (barely) holding on to the top spot since February, but lost it when he had an off night against Sacramento and only scored 18 points. This dropped his scoring average to 29.62. On the same night, Dantley poured in 42 against the Clippers, raising his average to 29.75 and giving him the lead.
Meanwhile, Dominique smoked the Washington Bullets for 33 and 46 in back-to-back games. The 33-point game put him in second place with a 29.64 average and his 46-point effort put him in the lead for the first time all season with a 29.9 points-per-game average. He also set another arena scoring record, tying the 46 points that Elgin Baylor put up at Capital Centre 11 years earlier.
So, with four games to go, &rsquo;Nique was in first place by a fraction of a point and the Hawks had 47 wins. After scoring 28 in a loss to the Bulls, neither &rsquo;Nique nor his squad had any wiggle room left. It was do or die. Atlanta needed to win out to hit the magic number of 50, and &rsquo;Nique likely needed to score 35 per game (at least) to capture the scoring crown.
In game No. 80, Wilkins scored 37 points, including 12 in the fourth quarter, to help secure the win. With two games remaining, here&rsquo;s where things stood:
Hawks&rsquo; win total: 48
&nbsp;
Scoring leaders:
Wilkins: 29.93 PPG
Dantley: 29.78 PPG
English: 29.70 PPG
Now we&rsquo;ve caught up to where we started this chapter &mdash; game No. 81 against the Nets and their defensive bullies.
With the 50-win total in sight and the scoring title on the brink, Wilkins shifted his car into no-more-bullshit gear and eviscerated the poor New Jersey Nets.
He scored 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting in the first quarter, and by the end of three quarters he had 41 points. It was a scoring onslaught, but the game remained tight and the scoring race was tighter. When the buzzer sounded to start the fourth quarter, &rsquo;Nique shook off the fatigue and became a hoops version of Muhammad Ali, floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee, and draining buckets. He reeled off nine points in less than five minutes, including a hard lay-up, a dunk off a pass from Spud Webb, and a few jumpers. This gave him a career-high 50 points.
He was on fumes, but he wasn&rsquo;t done.
He hit a powerhouse baseline slam to get to 52 and then a double-clutch reverse dunk that completely emptied his tank and gave him 54 points. After the dunk, you could see it on his face. He was cashed out. His adrenaline was gone. His legs were spent. He needed a break, and coach Mike Fratello took him out for a breather.
When he returned four minutes later, he was out of rhythm. Still, he managed three more points on a jumper and a foul shot, giving him 57 on the night.
It was a new personal best.
It broke the scoring record for The Omni (52 by Nate Archibald in 1973).
It tied Bob Pettit&rsquo;s franchise record from back in 1961 when the team played in St. Louis.
Most importantly, his record game helped give the Hawks their 49th win with one game to go and put Dominique firmly in the lead for the scoring title.
His scoring average was now 30.285, a few tenths of a point ahead of English and Dantley.
&ldquo;I tell you, all these guys were looking out for me tonight,&rdquo; Wilkins said after the game. &ldquo;They were really great to me. I can&rsquo;t tell you how much I owe them.&rdquo;
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As for how he felt?
First, he was exhausted, acknowledging that he was dead tired by the end of the game.
&ldquo;I had to come out,&rdquo; Wilkins said, joking that on a tired scale of one to 10, he was an 11. &ldquo;I was tired and trying too hard.&rdquo;
And yet, one game remained.
One game to get to 50 wins.
One game to secure his scoring title.
Two days later, the scoring title was Dominique&rsquo;s when both English and Dantley conceded and sat out their final games. After crunching the numbers, even if Wilkins had somehow scored zero points in his last game, Dantley would have needed 68 points in his final game to overtake &rsquo;Nique and English would have needed 70. Wilkins&rsquo; 81st-game output was too overpowering.
&ldquo;I never thought I would be this far ahead going into the last game,&rdquo; Wilkins joked.
Rather than a three-way battle for the scoring title on the final day of the season, game No. 82 against Indiana was all about the Hawks getting their 50th win. As he&rsquo;d done all season, Wilkins said, &ldquo;I got this,&rdquo; and continued his one-man assault on the NBA&rsquo;s defenses. By the time the Pacers looked up, &rsquo;Nique had 25 points at the half, putting him on pace for back-to-back 50-point outings. The Hawks won easily, 108-91, and with the franchise-tying 50th win in hand, he took his foot off the gas and finished with 34 points.
In the end, he won the scoring title by half a point.
He averaged 30.333 points per game, Dantley averaged 29.829, and English averaged 29.802.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take it any way I can get it,&rdquo; Wilkins said after the game.
The season-long performance also earned one final commendation when Dominique finished second in the MVP voting to Larry Bird. Magic Johnson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Charles Barkley finished third through sixth.
***
This was an excerpt from Jon Finkel&rsquo;s new digital biography Windmills &amp; Tomahawks: Nine Chapters on Dominique Wilkins. Buy it on Amazon <a href="https://amzn.to/3rmFUEs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a> or buy the PDF on Gumroad <a href="https://jonfinkel.gumroad.com/l/ztFyb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>. 
Finkel&rsquo;s books have been endorsed by everyone from Spike Lee and Kevin Durant to Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Cuban. His most recent books are 1996: A Biography and Hoops Heist: Seattle, the Sonics and How a Stolen Team&rsquo;s Legacy Gave Rise to the NBA&rsquo;s Secret Empire. You can follow him on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/Jon_Finkel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.

This excerpt from "Windmills & Tomahawks" by Jon Finkel explores how Dominique Wilkins captured the NBA scoring title in 1985-86.

Windmills & Tomahawks: How Dominique Wilkins led NBA in scoring in '86

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