That largely is due to the production of Oladipo and Sabonis, who both look far better than they did a year ago in Oklahoma City, for one significant reason: They have been put in positions to be comfortable.

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Oladipo clearly never adjusted to playing alongside Russell Westbrook. The Thunder tried to maximize every second Westbrook was on the court, but they failed to make a move that seems obvious now: making Oladipo the focus of the team’s second unit.

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Now that Oladipo has been given complete freedom by Nate McMillan in Indiana, the results are following: 23.8 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.5 assists a game, while shooting 48.5 percent from the field and, most importantly, 50 percent (21-for-42) from three-point range. While it’s unlikely that level of shooting will continue, even 38-42 percent would help open the other aspects of Oladipo’s game.

Meanwhile, Sabonis is getting regular minutes at center, unlike last season, when his minutes largely came at power forward with the Thunder (who had two better centers in Steven Adams and Enes Kanter) because of Myles Turner’s extended absence with a concussion. Now, Sabonis looks a lot more like the player who was excellent at Gonzaga than the tentative rookie we saw last season.

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Whether that continues when Turner returns (which could be soon) remains to be seen. But with a solid point guard tandem in Darren Collison and Cory Joseph, plus Oladipo and Thaddeus Young to go with Turner and — assuming he can continue to provide solid production — Sabonis, Indiana has enough decent players to keep it relevant in the thin Eastern Conference.

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That doesn’t mean the Pacers won the George trade, or that early opinions about the trade were wrong. What it does mean is that Indiana is going to have a more fun season than many expected, and that’s a good thing.

>>> I wrote the other day that both the Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors are afflicted by the same problem: They don’t care enough. The difference between the two is that Golden State can turn it on and off and still be very successful.

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The Cavaliers clearly cannot.

It was amazing to see them play at home against Indiana Wednesday — on the heels of losing four of their prior five games — and still see virtually no effort to stop the Pacers in transition, allowing them to shoot 54 percent from the field and 61 (!!!) percent from three-point range. A truly embarrassing effort.

That being said: The prediction here is Cleveland snaps out of its funk Friday in Washington. The Wizards have talked a lot about the Cavaliers over the past couple of months, and that should provide enough fuel for Cleveland to come in and make a point. It still won’t change the underlying issues, nor will it mask the loss of one of the team’s two quality defensive players, Tristan Thompson, for what appears to be a significant length of time after he strained his left calf during Wednesday’s loss.

>>> Speaking of the Wizards, Wednesday wasn’t the first time a team has gotten up by 20 points in an NBA game and gone to sleep, only to see their opponent beat them. But it was disappointing to see the Wizards let the Phoenix Suns — a terrible team playing the second of back-to-back road games — come from behind and beat them at Capital One Arena on Wednesday night.

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Yes, it was the first game back from a west coast trip. But the Wizards now have losses to the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns — two of the NBA’s worst teams — in the span of a week. That’s not exactly the look a team with designs on competing for the top seed in the East wants to give the rest of the league.

To their credit, at least the Wizards owned that postgame.

>>> The Suns now have more wins than the Cavaliers, and as many wins as San Antonio. This is after Phoenix had such a horrendous first three games that coach Earl Watson was fired.

There is always a bump when a coach gets the boot, but it says something about the effort the Suns were putting out for Watson that they’ve had such a dramatic turnaround.

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>>> The final 51 seconds of the Orlando Magic’s 101-99 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies Wednesday should’ve been played with the yakety sax music playing in the background.

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This is the series of plays that occurred after the game’s final field goal, a corner three-pointer from Aaron Gordon with 51 seconds left (more on that in a minute):

Mario Chalmers drove into the lane and flung the ball out of bounds

Terrence Ross lost the ball; Chalmers wound up with it

Chalmers, flying downcourt, threw up an awful layup attempt; Orlando rebounded

The Magic had a break going the other way, but when Ross caught the ball in the corner for a potential game-sealing three, his foot was on the line, resulting in a turnover

Chalmers wound up with the ball again, and missed another three

Orlando got the ball and called timeout, then Ross threw an inbounds pass to no one, resulting in yet another turnover

Memphis got another good look on the ensuing possession, but Dillon Brooks missed a transition three-pointer, Orlando got the rebound and made one of two free throws with 0.9 seconds left.

Let’s just say the outcome would’ve been different Mike Conley Jr. (sore Achilles’) played.

>>> That said, Orlando is 6-2, and Aaron Gordon has been a huge reason, scoring 20.9 points per game to go with 8.7 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.0 steals and 1.0 blocks per game. He looks like a natural at power forward, and has built on the improvements he made down the stretch last season when he played there full-time instead of at small forward.

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The most shocking development? Gordon is 15-for-27 (57.1 percent) from three-point range. For context: He made only 77 threes in 80 games last season. He won’t keep up that pace, but becoming a dependable option from behind the arc — and doing so at power forward — makes him incredibly valuable and changes the Magic’s trajectory.

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>>> The Utah Jazz closed out their 112-103 overtime win over the Portland Trail Blazers with an interesting lineup of Ricky Rubio, Donovan Mitchell, Thabo Sefolosha, Joe Ingles and Rudy Gobert. That quintet stands in contrast to today’s NBA game. Even with Rubio now shooting 37 percent from three after going 3-for-6 against the Trail Blazers, he, Mitchell and Sefolosha are all average or worse three-point shooters, while Gobert — for all he can do — doesn’t shoot outside of the paint.

But that lineup does defend, and it was defense that allowed the Jazz to close regulation with an 8-2 run — allowing one Portland field goal in the final 3:22 — before Utah pulled away in overtime, a period in which the Trail Blazers shot just 4-for-11 overall and 0-for-5 from three. I picked Utah to make the playoffs before the season because I expected them to be dominant at home and defensively, which would make up for an offense that was likely to struggle after losing Gordon Hayward in free agency. It’s early, but through eight games, the Jazz are 5-0 at home, and have the NBA’s third-best defense to go with the league’s 26th best offense.

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That’s a formula that won’t lead to many pretty wins, but it could lead to enough victories for Utah to keep itself in the playoff mix out West.

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>>> It’s easy to see why people are excited about Utah’s Donovan Mitchell, who plays with confidence. His shot has been an issue — even after going 9-for-21 from the field and 4-for-10 from three for 28 points Wednesday night, he’s shooting 37 percent from the field and 31 percent from three — but he does enough other stuff that it makes up for it. And if he can consistently start making shots, he’s going to be an awfully good player.

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