Good morning. James Harden outscored the Texas Longhorns.

Good morning! Are you sufficiently basketballed? If not, well, let’s basketball some more.

FITTY: James Harden is fighting for the scoring crown, so he decided to drop 50 on the Nuggets. You will be unsurprised to learn he scored almost half of those (22) from the line. Houston won to move up to No. 3 in the West, sitting just one game behind Memphis for the Southwest lead.

HOLY DEFENSE: In celebration of college basketball, the Suns beat the Pelicans 74-72. New Orleans didn’t break 19 in a quarter, and Phoenix won despite shooting below 35 percent from the field. (Anthony Davis didn’t play on account of rolling his ankle during drills earlier in the day.)

THE KNICKS ARE CLUTCH: New York coughed up a game against the Wolves, fellow travelers at the bottom of the standings, to earn a 1-game lead for the worst record in the NBA. Congratulations! Chris Herring had the best tweet about the thrilling finish.

RECAPS OF ALL THE ACTION!

YO: Don’t hurt them, Dame!

WHOA: The NBA does a good job making sure teams have similar numbers of back-to-backs. But Marc Stein discovered that some teams have many more games with at least one day of rest in which their opponent is on the business end of a back-to-back.

OF COURSE THEY WILL: The Spurs will try to grab Marc Gasol if Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili retire.

WELP: There’s a college player in Canada whose last name is ... well ... you see, this is a family newsletter.

NOWHERE FOR BRUNO: Kevin Yeung has a piece on the problem of Bruno Caboclo, who the Raptors called up recently as he wasn’t getting any burn in the D-League. Yeung mentions that the Raptors’ lack of a one-to-one affiliate is part of the problem in the team’s inability to develop Caboclo anywhere. It’s actually the entire problem. If Toronto had an affiliate with a hybrid relationship or one it directly owned, the Raptors would be able to ensure Bruno was getting minutes and playing in a system they approved. This is a matter of the Raptors’ management (at the franchisee level, not the front office) being cheap or lacking the foresight to have a one-to-one affiliate.

GIVE ME A (FAST) BREAK: Interesting piece on how Kawhi Leonard’s defense is a huge boon for San Antonio’s offense.

ANOTHER PLAN: Ken Berger’s conference imbalance fix also reduces the season to 66 games and has a tiny tournament to decide the No. 16 seed.

THE SWAGGER OF UCONN: Awesome piece by Kate Fagan on how the Huskies have built generations of confidence among players in Storrs.

UGH: Some AAU programs have a habit of recruiting African basketball players and essentially trafficking them into the United States. This typically turns out very poorly for the young men.

FULL MARCH MADNESS COVERAGE!

Happy Friday. Enjoy your weekend. See you next time.