For those of you locked into commissioner Adam Silver’s NBA Cup experiment, now in its second year, Tuesday night was a good one. Especially because of a specific rule on tiebreakers: the point differential.
Of all the close games, upsets and strategy involved in determining which eight teams advanced to the tournament’s quarterfinals next week, the most important factor turned out to be the number of points by which a team won its games.
The Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Utah Jazz by 27, the largest margin of victory in any Cup game that mattered on Tuesday, and because of it they wound up securing the top seed in the West heading into the knockout stages.
“I don’t love the design because it incentivizes (running up the score),” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said after his team’s 133-106 triumph. “There’s a certain grace you win with … they’ve created an incentive that flips that on its head. There’s an angel and devil on your shoulder, we’re going with the angel.”
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Be that as it may, the Thunder (3-1) ran up the score even if they didn’t try to, which allowed them to break a three-way tie in the West with Golden State and Houston — who both lost on Tuesday. Oklahoma City will host Dallas in one quarterfinal; the Rockets will host the Warriors in the other.
In the East, the Orlando Magic nearly blew a gift-wrapped spot in the quarterfinals. They lost to the New York Knicks, 121-106, but trailed by 37 at one point in the second half. All they had to do to advance as the East’s wild card was lose by 36 or less.
Additionally, the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Detroit Pistons 128-107 to sweep Group B in the East (4-0). New York (4-0 in Group A) earned a home game against East Group C winner Atlanta (3-1) in the quarterfinals. The Bucks, the No. 1 overall seed in the East, will host the Magic (3-1).
“They put a tournament in front of us and we want to win it,” Milwaukee coach Doc Rivers said. “We’re 4-0 and we still have a lot of work to do, but the bottom line is we earned a chance to play at home. I think, I don’t even know the rules (laughs), but I think that’s true.”
The Mavericks, basically needing just to beat Memphis to advance to the quarterfinals as the West’s wild card, came from 15 down in the fourth quarter for a 121-116 win. The Phoenix Suns beat the San Antonio Spurs 104-93 to take away the Spurs’ chance to win Group B (San Antonio’s loss and Oklahoma City’s win gave the Group B title to the Thunder). The Spurs were eliminated from the Cup altogether, but the Suns are also out because they lost a tiebreaker to Dallas on, you guessed it, point differential.
The Suns, whose plus-30 point differential was not enough to beat the Mavs’ plus-46, and who lost the tiebreaker in their pool to Oklahoma City by losing to the Thunder in an earlier Cup game, also lost star Kevin Durant to a left ankle sprain in the second quarter.
The Mavs looked like they were finished against the Grizzlies, but Spencer Dinwiddie hit two massive 3s down the stretch and P.J. Washington Jr. finished off Memphis with a 3-ball with 27 seconds left. Luka Dončić led all players with 31 points and 12 rebounds.
“I like this Cup. I used to play it in Spain — it was really fun out there,” Dončić said.
The Warriors could have taken the No. 1 seed in the West with a win and a Rockets loss, but collapsed in the final minute in Denver. Golden State, now losers of five straight, fell 119-115. The Warriors were ahead by seven with about 3:30 left. The Nuggets’ Christian Braun appeared to signal for a timeout in a loose ball situation when Denver was out of them with about 14, but he was not called for a technical foul. Had he been whistled for the infraction, the Warriors would’ve had a free throw and retained the ball; they were down by two points at the time. Instead, reigning NBA MVP Nikola Jokic made two free throws for Denver to seal it.
“It’s up to the referees, that’s why we have three of them — somebody has to see it,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “That made me mad. That said … we lost because we didn’t close, again.”
The Rockets would have captured the top seed in the West simply with a win, but lost to the Sacramento Kings 120-111. Alperen Sengun was ejected in the fourth quarter and coach Ime Udoka was issued a technical for going off on the officials after his player was tossed.
“Blatant missed calls right in front of you,” Udoka said. “You’re calling ticky-tack moving screens and little s— like that, but you don’t want to call the obvious ones right in front of you. Alpi got fouled a few times on that drive and on the layup — they don’t want to call it. Told them to get some f— glasses and open your eyes.”
Milwaukee began the season losing eight of its first 10 games but have won nine of 10 since. Giannis Antetokounmpo paced the Bucks with 28 points and eight assists in 28 minutes, resting the entire fourth quarter of the blowout. His team ripped off a 14-0 run late in the second quarter to blow the game wide open and made 15 of its first 21 3s. Damian Lillard added 27 points and five 3s. The Bucks advanced to the tournament’s semifinals in Las Vegas last year but were bounced by the Indiana Pacers.
The Pistons are a nice surprise story for the season under new coach J.B. Bickerstaff, given that they were the league’s worst team a year ago and are coming off the worst campaign in franchise history, setting a dubious NBA record for consecutive losses in the process. But Tuesday night’s game was Detroit’s first that really meant much in more than five years (since the organization’s last playoff appearance) and the team laid a collective egg at home. Cade Cunningham was Detroit’s scorer with 23 points.
The Pistons haven’t won a playoff game since 2008.
“For a lot of us in the NBA, this is the biggest game we’ve had,” said Bickerstaff, who was not speaking personally — he won a playoff series as Cleveland’s coach last spring. “Playing against a team that has champions on it, guys who have been through the fire before and understand what it takes to reach that next level. The NBA doesn’t let you skip steps.”
Karl-Anthony Towns dominated the Knicks-Magic game with 23 points and 15 boards. Josh Hart produced a triple double (11 points, 13 rebounds, 10 assists) and Jalen Brunson added 21 points. Orlando, which had won 12 of its last 13 and six in a row, was led by Franz Wagner’s 30 points.
The Thunder, the West’s top team overall this season at 16-5, won behind 28 points from Jalen Williams and 26 points from superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
The quarterfinals are Tuesday and Wednesday next week, and the winners of those games punch their tickets to Las Vegas for an NBA Cup semifinal at 4:30 p.m. or 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 14 at T-Mobile Arena. The tournament championship is at 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 17.
Players on every team that advanced to the knockout rounds get pool money. The tournament champions get $514,971 per player; runner up gets $205,988 per player; teams that lose in the semifinals get $102,994 per player; and players on teams that lose in the quarterfinal get $51,497 apiece.
“I don’t really care about the end (of the bench) guys getting the money. I just care about me, what I wanna spend,” Hart said inside the Knicks’ locker room after the win. Brunson interjected, “You’re an a—hole.”
“I’m just keeping it 100,” Hart continued. “I want a new watch, so I might get that. JB, what’s something else I can do to just spend the money? I can get a new car.”
In its very short life span — OK, one year — the in-season championship has not been a harbinger of future fortune to come. The Los Angeles Lakers won the inaugural tournament last December and wound up needing to advance through the Play-In Tournament to reach the playoffs as a No. 7 seed, losing in the first round to Denver.
All NBA Cup games count toward a team’s regular-season record, except for the championship game.
The Athletic’s Hunter Patterson and Eric Nehm contributed to this story from Detroit; Fred Katz contributed from New York; Andrew Schlecht contributed from Oklahoma City; Tyler Batiste contributed from Dallas; Anthony Slater contributed from Denver; and Kelly Iko contributed from Sacramento.
(Photo: Zach Beeker / NBAE via Getty Images)
