The Rockets are 5-0, the NBA's only team with 5 wins

The Houston Rockets are 5-0, the NBA's only team with 5 wins, per ESPN's standings. Memphis is 4-0 and Portland is 3-0, the league's other unbeaten teams, but neither has played a 5th game yet.

Game by game

• Dallas: won 128-110
• at San Antonio: won 114-110
• at Atlanta: won 121-114
• Atlanta: won 120-110
• at Milwaukee: won 132-100

Where the edge comes from

Houston has outscored opponents 615-544, a plus-71 differential in total. That is the largest total differential in the NBA; next is Minnesota at plus-63. In total, not per game: Portland's per-game differential is plus-18.6, ahead of Houston's plus-14.2, because Portland has played only 3 games. Houston's edge is built on volume as much as margin: it has simply won more games than anyone else.

The win at Milwaukee was the statement game of the night. Houston won by 32 points, the largest margin of the 12 games on that night's slate, ahead of Toronto's 30-point win over Orlando. Houston won 3 of its 5 games on the road: at San Antonio, at Atlanta, and at Milwaukee.

The skeptic's case, answered

The skeptic's case is the slate: Atlanta is 2-3 and Milwaukee is 1-4, and 2 of Houston's 5 wins came against Atlanta. Fair. But Houston also beat Dallas and San Antonio, and the Milwaukee win was by 32 points, not a squeaker against a weak team. A 5-0 team does not need a perfect schedule to have earned its record.

The caveat

The caveat: 5 games is 5 games, and Memphis at 4-0 and Portland at 3-0 are still unbeaten. What can be said: through 5 games, no team in the NBA has more wins than Houston, and no team has a larger total point differential.