NEW YORK — The field for the knockout rounds of the NBA Cup is set, and there will be a new champion as well as an almost entirely different field than last year’s inaugural version.
By the time the dust settled Tuesday night, the eight teams were set: the Milwaukee Bucks, New York Knicks, Atlanta Hawks and Orlando Magic in the Eastern Conference; and the Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, Golden State Warriors and Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference.
Last year’s NBA Cup champions, the Los Angeles Lakers, were eliminated from advancing to the knockout rounds with losses to the Phoenix Suns and the Thunder last week. The Bucks and the Knicks are only teams from the eight who also advanced to the in-season tournament last year.
The quarterfinal matchups next week will be the Magic at the Bucks and the Thunder hosting the Mavericks on Tuesday, with the Hawks at the Knicks and the Warriors visiting the Rockets on Wednesday.
“Yeah, it’s great,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said of his team advancing to the quarterfinals. “They put a tournament in front of us, and we want to win it. We said that early on, and we’re 4-0. But we still have a lot of work to do.”
Entering Tuesday, there was a lot still up for grabs. The Hawks, Rockets and Warriors were locked into quarterfinal spots as group winners, but the other five spots were available to be grabbed, including two games in the East — Magic at Knicks and Bucks at Pistons — that had direct win-and-in stakes, as they would determine the winners of Groups A and B, respectively.
The drama in each game didn’t last long, with the Knicks and Bucks racing out to sizable halftime leads and cruising from there. The only thing up for debate at that point? Whether the Knicks could possibly knock Orlando, which had a massive plus-60 point differential entering play Tuesday, out of the quarterfinals entirely with a blowout victory.
New York actually led by as many as 37 points — the amount the Knicks needed to win by in order to eliminate the Magic and allow the Boston Celtics to reach the quarterfinals as the wild card instead — in the third quarter. But Orlando eventually fought back in the fourth quarter to make the game a more respectable-looking 121-106 Knicks victory.
“We earned our way into the quarterfinal,” Magic forward Franz Wagner said. “Obviously not our best game today, but that’s why you play hard every minute in the other games.
“It feels weird even after a game like this to advance, but it’s just part of it.”
As a result, Orlando became the wild card, and the Magic will head to the top-seeded Bucks, while the Hawks and Trae Young — who advanced by virtue of beating Boston without Young last month — will travel to New York to play the Knicks, with trips to Las Vegas on the line for the winners.
Out West, Houston and Golden State entered Tuesday knowing they just had to win to secure home court in the tournament regardless of what happened elsewhere. But the Warriors gave up a 14-2 run to the Nuggets in Denver before losing 119-115. And Domantas Sabonis had 27 points to lead the Sacramento Kings to a 120-111 home triumph over the Rockets. That opened the door for the Thunder to become the top seed in the West based on point differential thanks to their 133-106 victory over the Utah Jazz.
“I wasn’t at all until I knew we were going to win tonight,” Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander told reporters when asked if he had followed along with what was happening with the NBA Cup standings leading up to Tuesday’s game. “I just asked around, but it’s all too confusing.
“I just win and then we see where we end up.”
