When the Atlanta Hawks (!) and Sacramento Kings (!!) topped 130 points on Sunday, it brought us to nine such games through the first six days of the 2018-19 season. As recently as 2012-13, there were just 14 such games through the entire season.
So far, teams are averaging 113.3 points per game, an increase of 7.0 from last season's 106.3. If maintained, that figure would blow away the previous high since the ABA-NBA merger of 110.8 PPG in 1984-85. To find a higher-scoring NBA season, you'd have to go all the way back to 1969-70 (116.7 PPG), when there were 14 teams and Atlanta played in the Western Division.
What explains the surge in scoring? Will it in fact continue? Let's try to answer the big questions about the big point totals we've seen in the season's first week.