Ken Berger

After the first two nights of the NBA season, here's what we know so far:

* The Celtics are loaded. Kevin Garnett has restored their defensive swagger, and Rasheed Wallace has made them more potent on the offensive end. Big Brawler ... I mean, Big Baby ... needs to chill.

* It's too early to panic about the Cavs' 0-2 record. But with their offense reverting once again to LeBron Against the World, and with coach Mike Brown searching desperately for the right combinations, you can definitely see how things could unravel pretty quickly. The Cavs miss John Kuester, who left his post as Brown's de factor offensive coordinator to coach the Pistons. The Cavs have zero identity as an offensive team, and they're not digging in defensively, either -- especially when Brown goes big with Shaq and Zydrunas Ilgauskas on the floor together. Let's scrap that look, shall we?

* More on the Cavs: As the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Brian Windhorst pointed out, the most alarming stat from Wednesday night's loss in Toronto: Shaq's plus-minus was minus-25.

*And one more thing: Kuester's role of drawing up offensive sets has fallen to assistant Mike Malone, the son of Magic assistant Brendan Malone. The Cavs believe the younger Malone is going to be an excellent tactician, but the Cavs are going to need strong leadership to get through the early part of the season. That has to come from the head coach.

* Vince Carter will fit in just fine with the Magic.

* The Nuggets and Jazz came out of the gate Wednesday night with playoff-like intensity, with Denver outlasting Utah 114-105 behind 30 points from Carmelo Anthony, 25 from Chauncey Billups, and 17 points, six assists, and four rebounds from rookie Ty Lawson. The Nuggets didn't make any offseason moves? Whatever. Trading into the draft to snag Lawson looks like a pretty good move to me.

* The Nuggets A) Don't need Stephen Jackson, and B) Haven't been in the discussion with Golden State beyond a brief exploratory talk between respective GMs Mark Warkentien and Larry Riley. The reason? Jackson's $7.65 million salary isn't a match with the Nuggets' $7,404,385 trade exception. Case closed.

* The Sixers are going to need some time to adjust to Eddie Jordan's Princeton offense. More importantly, after giving up 100 points to Orlando through three quarters and allowing 16 3-pointers in Wednesday night's 120-106 loss, they need a defense to go with it. Elton Brand (2-for-7, eight points) struggled in his debut under Jordan, but he wasn't the only one. If players don't trust Jordan's ball-movement offense, the tendency is to revert to an endless flurry of isolations, which is what the Sixers did on most trips when things broke down after 10-12 seconds on the shot clock.

* With 25 points from Richard Hamilton and 22 from Ben Gordon, the Pistons took an important step toward dispelling the belief that there won't be enough shots for Hamilton, Gordon, and Rodney Stuckey. Then again, it was only Memphis. Of more concern to the Grizzlies is the fact that Iverson already is dropping hints that he won't accept a reserve role once he returns from a hamstring injury. Gee, who could've seen that coming?

* DeJuan Blair (14 points, 11 rebounds in his Spurs debut) is as good as advertised.

* The Bobcats (59 points in their opener against Boston) are as bad as advertised.

* This blog is better than advertised.