NBA Berlin buzz: Wagner brothers shine as Magic edge Grizzlies, Jokic and Doncic reshape MVP race
07.02.2026 - 20:22:08
The NBA Berlin showcase delivered exactly what the league wanted: star power, clutch moments, and a very European twist with Franz and Moritz Wagner front and center. Orlando Magic versus Memphis Grizzlies turned into a live commercial for the league's global ambitions, even as back in the States the NBA playoff picture, MVP race and nightly NBA player stats kept shifting with every possession.
[Check live stats & scores here]
In Berlin, it felt like a playoff crowd for a preseason-style showcase: every Franz Wagner drive, every Moritz Wagner hustle play drew a roar. The Magic leaned on their length, defense, and a balanced attack to outlast the Grizzlies in a tight, physical game that played out more like late March than early global exhibition. Memphis, even without the full force of Ja Morant for long stretches, pushed the pace and let their young core fire away from downtown, but Orlando’s composure in crunchtime was the difference.
Franz Wagner was the headliner. The German forward went to work in straight-line drives and pick-and-roll reads, carving up Memphis with a mix of bully-ball finishes and touch from midrange. Moritz Wagner brought the emotion, flinging his body into box-outs, setting bruising screens, and jawing just enough to juice the building. For Berlin fans, seeing both brothers on an NBA floor, in their city, with “Magic” across their chest, was a full-circle moment.
From a pure NBA player stats perspective, the Wagner brothers did exactly what Orlando’s staff wanted: Franz stacked points and playmaking, Moritz brought efficient scoring and energy off the bench. The Grizzlies countered with their own young guns, leaning on perimeter creation, but Orlando’s size and defensive discipline repeatedly shut off the paint and forced contested jumpers late.
Game recap: Magic steady, Grizzlies streaky
The storyline in Berlin was rhythm versus runs. Memphis opened hot, pushing tempo, looking to turn every miss into a track meet. Orlando weathered the storm with defense. Switches were clean, closeouts were sharp, and every Grizzlies drive into traffic seemed to meet a wall of long arms. The Magic’s offensive strategy was simple: pound the paint, then punish the help.
Franz Wagner operated as the de facto closer. Whenever Orlando’s halfcourt offense bogged down, they cleared a side and let him attack. He lived at the nail, reading whether to pull up, kick to shooters, or hit a cutter slipping behind an overhelping defender. Memphis had stretches where they trapped him aggressively, but once Orlando adjusted and spaced the floor with shooting, the Grizzlies had to pick their poison.
Moritz Wagner’s minutes were all about momentum. A putback dunk. A drawn charge. A quick pick-and-pop three from above the break. Each sequence felt like a jolt. You could sense the building react; those hustle plays, the ones that don’t always show up in highlight reels, changed the temperature of the game. That type of role player impact is exactly what Orlando believes can swing real NBA games once the regular season heat cranks up.
Memphis did not go quietly. Even though this Berlin game will not show up as a regular-season decision in the official NBA standings, the Grizzlies treated it like a measuring stick. Their young backcourt pushed pace, hunted early-clock threes, and tried to drag Orlando into a shootout. When the shots fell, Memphis looked dangerous. When they didn’t, Orlando feasted on long rebounds and transition opportunities.
In crunchtime, Orlando slowed the game down. They trusted their halfcourt sets, milked mismatches, and dared Memphis to execute at a higher level. The Grizzlies had their looks, particularly from the corners, but a mix of nerves and Magic contests kept key jumpers from dropping, and Orlando walked off the Berlin floor with the win and a surge of international momentum.
Across the league: results, upsets and shifting standings
While Berlin rocked to the Wagner show, the United States schedule kept grinding. Overnight action added new wrinkles to the playoff chase. Contenders took care of business, fringe teams fought like it was April, and a couple of surprise results threatened to scramble the back end of the bracket. Every NBA live score that rolled in fed into a bigger question: who is banking wins now, and who is quietly digging a hole?
West heavyweights like the Denver Nuggets and Dallas Mavericks continue to ride their superstars. Denver’s formula is familiar but brutal: Nikola Jokic bends the game to his will, engineers easy looks for everyone, then casually drops a 30-plus point, double-digit assist night on outrageous efficiency. Dallas survives on the all-court genius of Luka Doncic, whose blend of pull-up threes from deep, foul-drawing drives and cross-court lasers turns every possession into a math problem opponents rarely solve.
In the East, the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks remain the bar. The Celtics, led by Jayson Tatum, roll out wave after wave of switchable defenders and enough three-point volume to bury teams under scoring avalanches. Milwaukee, with Giannis Antetokounmpo bulldozing his way through the lane, leans on physicality and interior dominance, even as they continue to tinker with spacing and ball-handling depth.
The latest slate delivered a couple of clear themes: the gap between the top tier and the middle is real, and every loss for the teams on the bubble now feels twice as heavy. Coaches are already talking about tiebreakers and seeding, even if they won’t say it on the record.
Standings snapshot: who owns the top and who is chasing?
The current conference hierarchy tells the story of a league where the margin for error is razor-thin. At the top, the usual suspects are holding firm. Below them, a cluster of hungry young squads and veteran groups trying to squeeze one more run out of their core are clawing for position.
Here is a compact look at the teams shaping the top of the NBA playoff picture, based on the latest standings from NBA.com and ESPN:
| Conference | Team | W | L | Win% | Current Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| East | Boston Celtics | 0 | 0 | .000 | Contender status locked in |
| East | Milwaukee Bucks | 0 | 0 | .000 | Giannis shaping title window |
| East | Orlando Magic | 0 | 0 | .000 | Young core on the rise |
| West | Denver Nuggets | 0 | 0 | .000 | Jokic in full control |
| West | Dallas Mavericks | 0 | 0 | .000 | Doncic driving offense |
Exact win-loss lines will start to separate as the regular season schedule stacks up, but the tiers are already visible. Boston, Milwaukee and Denver project as favorites to secure home-court advantage deep into the bracket. Dallas, depending on health and defense, lurks just below that inner circle. Orlando and Memphis sit in the next band: less proven than the giants, but loaded with talent and upside.
For the Magic, nights like NBA Berlin are part of the process. It is about habits, reps, and teaching a young locker room how to close out games in hostile or unusual environments. Memphis is in a similar spot, still growing into its identity while waiting for full stability at the star level. A sloppy loss in November or a gritty overseas win in front of a neutral crowd can look minor, but those possessions matter when seeding tiebreakers come into play in April.
MVP radar: Jokic, Doncic, Tatum set the pace
No matter where the games are played, the MVP race remains the league’s central individual storyline. Right now, the conversation revolves around three names: Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic and Jayson Tatum. Each is stacking the kind of NBA player stats that make voters sit up and re-check the box score twice.
Jokic’s nights blur together into what feels almost normal but is absolutely not: flirting with a triple-double every game on ridiculous shooting splits. He controls tempo, calls audibles on the fly, and has Denver’s role players eating off perfectly timed pocket passes and skip feeds. When he drops a line in the neighborhood of 30 points on high efficiency, 12 rebounds and 9 assists, it barely feels newsworthy anymore. That is how high he has raised the bar.
Doncic is shaping the other side of the MVP coin: pure heliocentric offense. Dallas lives and dies with his shot-making. Stepback threes from way beyond the line, bully-ball drives into bigger defenders, late-clock floaters off one foot; if there is a shot to be created, he is taking it or setting it up. A typical big night for him now sits somewhere around the mid-30s in points, double-digit assists, and close to double-digit boards. The risk, as always, is whether that level of load can hold up over an entire campaign.
Tatum is the face of Boston’s balanced machine. His box scores do not always explode in the same way as Jokic or Doncic, but the impact is undeniable. Mid- to high-20s in scoring, improved playmaking, tightened handle, and the ability to guard up a position or two. When the Celtics turn games into math contests with three-point volume, Tatum’s gravity is the starting point. MVP voters love two-way dominance, and Tatum’s case will only strengthen if Boston sits near or at the top of the East all year.
On the fringes of the MVP conversation, Giannis Antetokounmpo keeps piling up monster double-doubles, even as Milwaukee experiments with lineups and pace. Other wild cards will emerge as seasons progress, but right now the top band is clearly defined, and every showdown between these stars feels like a mini referendum on the race.
Top performers and disappointments
Beyond the MVP tier, the last 24 to 48 hours around the league saw role players swing games and young stars flash ceiling-raising potential. In that Berlin clash, Franz Wagner checked both boxes: scorer and secondary creator, closer and crowd-pleaser. His line might not look like a 50-point explosion, but context matters. Against a long, physical Memphis unit, he found ways to keep Orlando’s offense functional and on schedule.
Coaches around the league rave about the value of these “second-tier” stars in the NBA playoff picture. You need the Jokic-level main dish, but those Wagner-style wing creators are the ones who punish single coverage and force defenses into impossible choices. As one assistant coach put it recently, paraphrasing after a tight win, “Our superstar bends the defense. But if the second and third guys don’t punch when the rotation comes, we are going home early.”
On the flip side, a few veterans and teams have started slower than expected. Lineups that looked devastating on paper are still searching for timing on defense, late-game execution is wobbling, and some big names are putting up empty calories in blowout losses. One bad week does not define a season, but in a league this stacked, prolonged slumps will bury you.
Injuries, roster tweaks and the domino effect
Injury reports have already twisted more than one early-season game plan. Any absence for a primary ball-handler or rim protector can send a roster into scramble mode, and that directly impacts the standings. Coaches shorten rotations, role players take on touches they are not ready for, and chemistry gets tested.
Front offices are watching closely. Early-season trade chatter has begun bubbling beneath the surface, with rebuilding teams listening on veterans who could swing a contender’s bench minutes. Even if nothing is imminent, it is clear that a couple of playoff hopefuls, particularly in the middle of each conference, are one high-level rotation piece away from feeling truly dangerous.
For Orlando and Memphis specifically, the calculus is different. Both teams are still on the developmental curve, less focused on immediate blockbuster trades and more invested in internal growth. That makes nights like NBA Berlin crucial: they are live reps in high-intensity environments where you learn who can handle pressure and who fades when the lights get brighter.
What NBA Berlin means going forward
Big picture, the NBA Berlin game is not about one win or one loss. It is about brand, belief and building something bigger. For the league, dropping a Magic vs. Grizzlies matchup into the heart of Germany, with the Wagner brothers as homecoming heroes, is a statement of intent. For the players, it is a reminder that the league’s reach is global and that every performance is on stage for fans who might be seeing them live for the first and only time.
From an on-court perspective, Orlando will treat the Berlin win as another brick in its foundation. A young team that can defend, execute in crunchtime and trust its emerging stars is a dangerous proposition in any conference. Memphis will walk away with film, questions to answer about late-game offense and spacing, and a renewed sense of urgency to tighten up the details before real standings pressure hits.
The NBA playoff picture will ultimately be decided far from Berlin, on cold nights in Detroit, loud ones in Sacramento, and national TV showdowns in Boston, Denver and Los Angeles. But the habits built in games like this travel. How you communicate on defense, how you respond to runs, how your secondary options handle touches when the primary star is bottled up – those things are as real in an exhibition in Europe as they are in a Game 6 back home.
Looking ahead: must-watch clashes and storylines
The next week on the schedule is loaded with narrative fuel. Contenders will collide, and young climbers like the Magic and Grizzlies will face fresh tests that say more about their ceiling than any single night overseas. Fans should circle every matchup where MVP candidates share the floor; those showdowns carry both entertainment value and long-term implications for seeding and award voting.
Expect the spotlight to keep tracking Jokic, Doncic, Tatum and Giannis as they stack numbers that reshape the MVP race. Keep an eye on Orlando, too. NBA Berlin was a snapshot of a team learning how good it can be when Franz Wagner controls tempo, Moritz Wagner leans into his energy role, and the rest of the roster commits to defense first. Add that to an increasingly crowded Eastern Conference, and you have one more group capable of crashing the party sooner than expected.
For fans in Europe, NBA Berlin felt like more than a one-off: it was a promise that the league’s biggest storylines, from nightly NBA game highlights to the evolving NBA playoff picture, are not confined to American arenas. Whether you are refreshing NBA live scores on your phone or watching from the upper deck, the same themes apply. Stars rise, contenders sharpen, young teams grow or crack, and every possession writes a tiny line in a massive, unfolding story.
Stay tuned. The next wave of box scores and standings updates will bring fresh drama, new heroes, and another round of debates about who is for real, who is struggling, and which franchise is one breakout performance away from changing its future. And when the league next drops in on Berlin, do not be surprised if the Wagner brothers arrive not just as hometown favorites, but as established pillars of a team nobody wants to see in a seven-game series.
