The NBA playoffs officially started on Saturday, closing the book on the regular season as the sport turns to its title chase over the coming two months.
The NBA’s regular season is a marathon, with ups and downs for every team across 82 games played. There are also plenty of ups and downs for us reporters who have been blessed with the job of covering the sport day in and day out.
When the Wizards are playing the Jazz on a February Tuesday in a game that neither team wants to win, it can sure feel like a slog, but the NBA regular season still has plenty of moments that can capture our imagination and what we love about the sport. Sometimes it’s a great basketball performance, other times it’s an odd interaction that only basketball could provide.
We break down our favorite momets from the past season below.
Pacers fans go viral: ‘What the f--- are you talking about?’
One of my favorite moments of the NBA season has to be the viral scene caught on the Pacers’ home broadcast of a couple, wearing Indiana gear, engaged in an animated back-and-forth. The clip immediately went viral on social media, and one day later in an exclusive interview with Sports Illustrated, the couple revealed what they were so passionately talking about.
“We were talking about the academic rigor of a liberal arts education, and essentially how it can be updated for the current economic status and job market,” Michael said.
IM CRYINGGGGGGGG I LOVE MY BOYFRIEND THIS IS JUST HOW WE TALK!!!!!!!!!!!!! https://t.co/V9yjPwAP43
— Grace (@gracecamille_) April 10, 2026
Of course they were. What else do fans have to discuss during an April game between two teams with under 20 wins? — Tom Dierberger
The All-Star Game is … kind of good again?
Although All-Star Weekend has yet to reach “we are so back” levels of renewed cultural importance, the 2025–26 iteration was thankfully a step in the right direction. After last year's event, all anyone could talk about (myself included) was how positively lame-o the whole production had become. Not even the players seemed to care about the game at the center of it all, in some cases because they were too worried about getting hurt to actually give things a real shake.
Thankfully, Adam Silver did something about it. In a concession to both its fans and its athletes, the NBA leaned into a much-discussed USA vs. the World format, which saw the league’s American-born players team up against its biggest international stars in a round robin-style tournament. It helped, too, that young stars like Victor Wembanyama publicly vowed to actually give it their all once they hit the court, injecting a bit of pride-driven rivalry into what could have been nothing more than a typical game. In the end, the new approach resulted in the largest ASG audience since 2011.
I'd like to think there is still work to be done in restoring the event to its former glory and prestige, and hope that next year’s spectacle is bigger and better than the one we had in February. But, as far as rare NBA wins go, it was also quite refreshing to realize how much I was genuinely looking forward to putting the game on, and not just because I had to watch it for work. — Brigid Kennedy
If looks could kill: Nikola Jokić’s piercing death stare at Lu Dort (and hating OKC in general)
To quote one of the greatest movies of all time, you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. In 2026, the Oklahoma City Thunder are, unequivocally, the villains.
“That’s a physical game and there’s limits to it. And I went over the limit.”
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) March 4, 2026
- Lu Dort on tripping Nikola Jokic
(Via @JoelXLorenzi ) pic.twitter.com/FHXFqkjp4Z
Let’s get this out of the way: I’m a Warriors fan, so this season sucked. A lot. Rather than watch my third-stringers miss layups, I was looking for a better use of my daily dedicated sports-viewing time, and what heals the soul more than a classic hate-watch? Enter the league’s most annoyingly good team in the Thunder.
Seeing Nikola Jokić vaporize Lu Dort with his crazy eyes made me feel something I hadn’t felt in months: hope. Hope that Jokić and the Nuggets possessed the strength and stamina to take down the reigning champions in their presumed meeting in the playoffs, because seeing a man who loves horses win the league is way better than seeing OKC repeat this postseason.
Their style of play is boring. Their stars are unlikeable. Dort, as shown by his nasty trip on Jokić, is one of the dirtiest guys in the NBA. Devoid of any real charm, and methodically ruthless in the way they suffocate their opponents, the Thunder are like the evil scientists of movie lore who have concocted a potent and deadly potion (a winning formula) to take over the world (extend their dynasty)—and now it’s up to the rest of the league to stop them. God save our souls. — Kristen Wong
LeBron James’s emotional return to Cleveland as we all continue to ponder … could this be it?
We still don’t know whether James’s record 23rd NBA season will be his last. Heck, he still doesn’t even know, apparently.
Although the 41-year-old has looked like his young self plenty over the course of the season, this year was the first that made you wonder whether his illustrious career could really be on the foreseeable horizon. He missed the first month of the season while dealing with sciatica and the Lakers struggled to adjust once he was back in the rotation. L.A. figured things out, but James seemed to become more comfortable discussing the end of his career over the course of the season. No moment brought James’s potential retirement into the forefront than the Lakers’ trip to Cleveland to play the Cavaliers in late January.
The Cavs prepared an emotional tribute video for their hometown hero, which had James visibly choked up as he watched from the bench.
An emotional LeBron soaks in the Cleveland tribute 🥹 pic.twitter.com/SrcXsUIEfl
— NBA (@NBA) January 29, 2026
It might’ve been the last time the franchise legend and greatest scorer in NBA history played in front of his hometown crowd. Maybe he comes back for another year, possibly even with Cleveland, and the tribute video was just happy memories. But should he decide to suddenly call it quits after this season, the trip to Cleveland will be a moment to look back on. — Blake Silverman
Victor Wembanyama, Nikola Jokić go blow-for-blow in the shadow of the MVP race
My absolute favorite moments of NBA basketball come when two generational talents face off in a head-to-head matchup and take it as a personal challenge to out-do each other. Bonus points if those generational talents double as physical anomalies who make even simple moves look special. Thus, the Wemby-Jokić heavyweight fight on April 4 was effectively created in a laboratory for me.
In a fierce overtime battle the two superstar centers combined for 74 points, 26 rebounds, 20 assists and eight blocks. Wembanyama played more minutes than he had in a single game all season, as good a sign as any he felt this was a personal battle he had to fight against a contemporary talent. And for many it was a real measuring contest between two front-runner MVP candidates, giving an April game stakes rarely felt for the many fans who tune out of the last part of the NBA season.
It was awesome.
Best of all, each player gave us signature plays. Wembanyama did a bunch of stuff no human being should physically be able to do on the court, as is his habit. Jokić sealed the win for the Nuggets with his classic Sombor Shuffle fadeaway J over Wemby, the ball arcing like the sun over the sky—and untouched despite the young star’s wingspan being on par with a small airplane. It was a Monstars matchup, Godzilla vs. Mothra, a scene straight out of Pacific Rim; two titans smashing together with an impact felt ‘round the NBA. — Liam McKeone
Bam Adebayo passes Kobe Bryant with 83 points against the Wizards
When we turn on Christmas Day NBA games, we know that the league has put together some of the best possible matchups for the special occasion. In June, when the NBA Finals roll around, the stakes of those games don’t need to be oversold. But one of the special things about basketball is that history can strike at any time, even in the games you least expect. See: the March 10 game between the then sixth-place Heat and the lowly 14th-place Wizards, when Bam Adebayo—a center who scored just a shade over 20 points per game this season and had a career high of 41—dropped 31 in the first quarter and never stopped.
Adebayo would finish with 83, putting himself two points ahead of Kobe Bryant, with only Wilt Chamberlain’s legendary 100-point outing ahead of him in the NBA’s single-game record books.
Was the end of the game a bit of a free-throw fueled farce, in which the Heat were blatantly gunning to get Adebayo as many points as possible? Was an abysmal Washington team particularly awful on that fateful Tuesday night, playing out the string as they gunned for the best odds to win next month’s draft lottery? For sure, on both counts.But no display of scoring like this is without its farcical elements, and Adebayo still put the ball through the hoop enough to have 83 points next to his name in the box score. Those who tuned in to League Pass will never forget where they were as they watched this silly-yet-incredible piece of history made. — Dan Lyons
Victor Wembanyama makes the case for ethical basketball
I will remember the 2025–26 season and the one where I realized that Victor Wembanyama was my new favorite basketball player. Wembanyama’s talent on the court is a big factor in his rise in my personal rankings, but what I love even more than how he plays the game is how he talks about the game.
This year, Wembanyama properly introduced me to a term I had unknowingly been searching for my entire life: “ethical basketball.”
I do not know if ethical basketball is a term Wemby accidentally coined on his own or if it is a standard that young players are taught to embrace in France, but wherever it came from, it heightened my appreciation for both Wemby and the sport as a whole.
Wemby’s comments were enough to get some fans fuming, because by defining some basketball as ethical the immediate question and accusation of “unethical basketball” is raised.
But what Wembanyama is really calling for is a variety of style and a push to play the game as its meant to be played. Rather than arguing that one style is the “ethical” way to play, Wemby made clear that what thought of the concept was more about getting away from a game that was solely predicated on isolation.
It’s the basketball equivalent of “Joga Bonito,” although admittedly, the call to “play beautifully” is probably a bit less inflammatory than “play ethically.”
Still, I love the message, the messenger, and think that for the most part, Wemby’s statement made the right people angry. — Tyler Lauletta
More NBA From Sports Illustrated
Listen to SI’s NBA podcast, Open Floor, below or on Apple and Spotify. Watch the show on SI’s YouTube channel.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Sports Illustrated’s Favorite Moments of the 2025–26 NBA Season.
