NBA buzz: Cavs' playoff plans, Warriors and Rockets trade intel - ESPN

The second edition of the NBA Cup has arrived — and so has another slew of injuries.

Friday will mark the second of seven days of group stage games taking place over the next few weeks. It will have a tough time topping Tuesday's wild and unpredictable opening night, which featured the Atlanta Hawks upsetting the Boston Celtics without Trae Young, the Portland Trail Blazers shocking the Minnesota Timberwolves and Joel Embiid making his season debut in a loss to the New York Knicks. Meanwhile, several players have gone down with injuries, including stars such as Zion Williamson, Kevin Durant and Chet Holmgren.

Heading into this weekend's action, here's everything in our notebooks, including early NBA Cup standouts, Karl-Anthony Towns' best game as a Knick, Holmgren's injury timetable and more. But we begin with the NBA-best Cleveland Cavaliers, and why the league's lone unbeaten is playing its superstar the fewest minutes of his career.

Jump to a section:
Cavs' plan to stay healthy
How's KAT's defense?
What's brewing in Atlanta?
Warriors, Rockets eyeing deals?
Undersized OKC?
Sixers' plan for Embiid, George
Heat rally behind Spo

Bontemps: On Wednesday, a few hours before Cleveland extended its season-opening winning streak to 13 games, I asked Donovan Mitchell about the Cavaliers starting so hot with him playing a career-low 30.7 minutes per game.

«My body's excited, I'll tell you that,» Mitchell said. «I'm not going to be like, 'Oh, I saw this coming.' But what makes me excited is the fact that, man, we haven't even revved up the minutes. At this point last year, the past three years or so, I've been playing 35, 36.

»[Fewer minutes] allows you to kind of be freer mentally, physically and have a trust in the guys that like,