2015 NBA scores: The big 3 contenders are emerging in the Western Conference

The top-heavy West, an incredible feat from Dirk and the rest of the NBA action from Wednesday night.

Dec 24, 2015, 2:00 PM UTC

Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

It's not even Christmas and we're already seeing which three teams look like the big contenders in the Western Conference. The Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder all won Wednesday night to help provide even more buffering distance between them and the rest of the standings.

The West has usually been a gauntlet featuring several possible championship teams this early in the season. On Christmas Eve this year, however, we might already be down to three. The Warriors, Spurs and Thunder look so good right now that it seems unlikely anybody else will be good enough to break through.

Golden State improved to 27-1 this season by beating the Jazz on Wednesday. The Warriors are off to the best start in NBA history and would only be challenged by the most formidable of opponents. Two of those might exist in the Spurs and Thunder, who also kept their winning ways up. San Antonio is now 25-5 this season, while OKC is 20-9. No other team in the conference is more than three games over .500.

All three juggernauts are crushing opponents, too.

The Spurs got off to a hot start en route to a 25-point win over the Timberwolves on Wednesday. Nobody scored more than Kawhi Leonard's 19 points as a balanced scoring effort and dominant defense carried the day. San Antonio shot 54 percent from the field, held Minnesota to 42 percent shooting and led in rebounding 47-31. A younger Timberwolves team simply didn't stand a chance against the well-oiled machine that is San Antonio.

The Warriors’ stars didn’t have their best night from the field but showed that, like the Spurs, they can win games with defense. Golden State limited Utah to 41 percent shooting and forced 19 turnovers in a 103-85 victory Wednesday night. The Jazz have played the league’s No. 1 team tough at times during two meetings this season, yet came away defeats both times.

And beyond those two, the Thunder might've had the most impressive effort. Oklahoma City overcame a lively first half from Kobe Bryant and the Lakers by opening the third quarter on a 22-0 run en route to their 20th win of the season. Russell Westbrook had a big game for OKC with 23 points, including two when he went coast-to-coast through LA's entire defense for a bucket. This was another game with a big shooting disparity: OKC shot 54 percent, LA shot 36 percent.

It all shows where the West is now as a top-heavy conference featuring three true juggernauts. There’s just nobody else in the West that stands up to the test right now. Look at the net ratings for the top five teams in the conference entering Christmas, via NBA.com:

Team	Net Rating (Per 100 possessions)
Warriors	+15.2 points
Spurs	+14.3 points
Thunder	+9.7 points
Clippers	+2.1 points
Mavericks	+0.9 points

There might be some other talented teams like the Clippers, Rockets, Grizzlies and Mavericks, but right now, this is a three-team race. The strong performances that we saw from Golden State, San Antonio and OKC on Wednesday were a reminder of that.

3 things we learned

Dirk is one of the NBA's all-time great scorers

Dirk Nowitzki keeps improving on one of the most impressive resumes in NBA history. The Mavericks forward is now sixth on the NBA's all-time career points list after passing Shaquille O'Neal in the Mavericks' 119-118 OT win over the Nets on Wednesday night. Nowitzki scored 22 points on 7-of-13 shooting in the game to reach 28,609 career points in his 17-plus NBA seasons. The only players to score more are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387), Karl Malone (36,928), Kobe Bryant (32,897), Michael Jordan (32,292) and Wilt Chamberlain (31,419). That's a pretty amazing group to be a part of and helps put into perspective just how productive Nowitzki has been with the Mavs. Beyond being the best player in European history and a legend in Dallas, Dirk is also one of the most prolific scorers basketball has ever seen.

The Magic still look real

Orlando's big breakout season continued with a 104-101 win over the Rockets on Wednesday night. The Magic have now won five of their past six and 11-of-15 to move into playoff position in the Eastern Conference entering Christmas. It's an impressive turnaround under head coach Scott Skiles, who has quickly gotten the team to rally around a defensive style and win games. Nikola Vucevic scored 20-plus points for the fourth straight game and guard Evan Fournier hit the game-winner as part of a 17-point effort. Fournier's emergence under Skiles and the team's top-10 defense aren't flukes. It's becoming clear that the Magic aren't going anywhere soon.

Kobe keeps on keepin’ on
The Kobe Bryant farewell tour is finally starting to feature some quality basketball. A rough start to the season for the 37-year-old shooting guard has given way to a pretty solid stretch of basketball. Bryant scored 17 points in the first half Wednesday as part of a 19-point effort. It’s pretty clear that he got tired in the second half but we were still treated to some classic moments. Bryant now scored 19-plus points in five straight games, and more importantly, he’s been efficient in doing so. Kobe has shot 46 percent from the field and 34 percent from three-point range over that five-game stretch, easily his best of 2015-16. He even dunked Wednesday!

Let’s hope this doesn’t mean he misses Christmas Day. We may get a lot of ugly Kobe games in this final season -- heck, even the second half of this one was a total mess -- but it’s still fun to get highlights like these.

Play of the night

Spurs... pic.twitter.com/i8JuvZ8Zz8
— Darnell Mayberry (@DarnellMayberry) December 24, 2015

Usually, the play of the night is a brief moment of basketball brilliance like a big dunk or block. Sometimes we just need to appreciate how gorgeous team play can be when perfected. This sequence from the Spurs features eight passes in roughly 10 seconds in a sequence of pure nirvana. Basketball as a team sport will rarely look as pretty as it did during this possession.