The Brooklyn Nets lived up to the hype on the NBA’s opening night.

After waiting more than a year to see what Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving would look like together in Brooklyn, that tandem delivered in a 125-99 win over the Golden State Warriors.

Durant came out of the gate on fire, scoring 10 points in the game’s first five minutes en route to scoring 22 against his former team. Irving scored a game-high 26 points despite playing just over 25 minutes.  

Here is the Morning Coffee for Wednesday Dec. 23, 2020.

Nets Deliver In Season Opener

The Nets won and covered easily as a 7.5-point favourite against the Warriors.

In fact, they did so with their starting lineup sitting on the bench for the entire fourth quarter.

While it’s important to keep one win in perspective, anybody that watched Brooklyn dismantle the Warriors in the first half last night knows that this team has what it takes to contend.

The Nets entered opening night as the second choice to win the NBA title at +500 odds behind only the Los Angeles Lakers.

Brooklyn remains the co-favourite to finish with the best record in the Eastern Conference at +230 odds along with the Milwaukee Bucks.

It will certainly be interesting to see how things play out after Durant and Irving looked locked in to begin their championship quest for the Nets.

Clippers Take Down Lakers

Speaking of title contenders, the Los Angeles Clippers upset the defending NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers 116-109 in their opener on Tuesday night.

Paul George scored a game-high 33 points, Kawhi Leonard added 26, and the Clippers never trailed in the game.

With the Lakers and Clippers currently the betting favourite and fourth choice to win it all respectively, it once again looks like the road to the NBA Finals will go through Los Angeles.

NFL Power Rankings

The Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills and Green Bay Packers each took care of business with wins in Week 15.

Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Steelers absolutely crumbled in an ideal “get right” spot against the Cincinnati Bengals, losing by double digits as a double-digit favourite.

For as good as the Steelers looked earlier this season, they’ve now lost three in a row and are suddenly staring down a potential five-game losing streak to close out the regular season with a pair of tough opponents coming up in the Indianapolis Colts and Cleveland Browns.

Can Pittsburgh end their slide and get back on track before the playoffs? I’m not counting on it. 

Here is how I view the top five teams in the NFL entering Week 16, with each team’s Super Bowl odds in brackets.

1. Kansas City Chiefs (+160)

The Chiefs inched one step closer to a Super Bowl with an impressive win over the New Orleans Saints in which Patrick Mahomes solidified his MVP case. Kansas City will close out the season against the Atlanta Falcons and Los Angeles Chargers. Will they lose another game this season? With only one team in each conference benefiting from a playoff bye week, the Chiefs will have yet another advantage over everybody else once the postseason arrives.  

2. Buffalo Bills (+900)

While I know that not everybody agreed with my decision to move Buffalo to No. 2 on this list last week, it’s hard to argue against the numbers. If it wasn’t for a last-second Hail Mary loss to the Arizona Cardinals, the Bills would enter this week one game back of the Chiefs for the No. 1 overall seed in the NFL. Regardless, Buffalo is a division champion for the first time since 1995, and it could be the start of something special.

As I said last week, the Bills have the firepower to keep up with Kansas City, which I think will be the most important factor in any potential head-to-head playoff meeting with the Chiefs.

3. Green Bay Packers (+550)

While Aaron Rodgers might have disappointed fantasy managers who expected better numbers from him in last week’s 24-16 win over the Carolina Panthers, the Packers always looked in control of that game and did what it took to improve to 11-3. Green Bay faced a tough test this week with the Tennessee Titans in town before visiting the Chicago Bears to close out the regular season. A Week 3 win over the Saints means that the Packers only need to win one of those final two games to clinch the No. 1 seed in the NFC, home-field advantage for the playoffs, and that very important first-round bye week.

4. New Orleans Saints (+850)

The Saints have now dropped two in a row to fall to 10-4, yet they remain firmly entrenched in the No. 4 spot on my list. So what gives? Well, they just lost to the best team on this list by a field goal so it’s hard to take much away from New Orleans based on that one loss. The Saints also still rank No. 1 overall in Total DVOA and own a better record than any other team that isn’t on this list with the exception of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who didn’t have to play an entire month without their future Hall of Fame quarterback the way that New Orleans did. The Saints still have the best chance at making a Super Bowl run of the teams listed outside of my top three.

5. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+1200)

For the first time since I debuted these rankings, I had a tough choice to make at No. 5. Nothing has come easy for the Buccaneers this season, and yet they have a legitimate path to finishing 11-5 with at least one notable win over Green Bay. The Tampa Bay offence finally showed signs of what we expected to see from them this season in the second half of last week’s 31-27 win over the Atlanta Falcons. Was it a sign of things to come? I still believe that when it matters the most, the Buccaneers offence will be able to rise to the challenge in the postseason. Plus, for all of their flaws they still rank No. 2 in Total DVOA and are the fifth choice to win the Super Bowl according to the betting odds. With the Steelers coming off a third straight loss in which they looked extremely flawed, I’ll give Tampa Bay a small bump and push them into my top five this week.