Welcome to the knockout rounds of the 2025 Emirates NBA Cup, where eight teams — four from each conference — will compete in quarterfinal matchups on Tuesday (East) and Wednesday (West). The winners will advance to the semifinals in Las Vegas, where they’ll have the chance to compete for the right to etch their names into NBA Cup history, for the chance to hoist all 35 pounds of it, and for whatever bragging rights come along with being the third victors of this still-buffering competition.
And if that’s not doing anything for you, well, the stacks of cash awaiting the winners seem to be motivating the participants. Quoth philosopher/Miami Heat swingman Pelle Larsson: “I think $500,000 is $500,000 for anyone.”
Advertisement
Before our quarterfinal quartet tips off, let’s reset the table in the East as we return to our irregularly scheduled tournament, already in progress:
Where we left off in the East
We detailed that frantic final evening of group-stage play, with three of the four quarterfinal spots still up for grabs.
There was drama in Detroit, where the conference-leading Pistons and hard-charging Magic were separated by just one point heading into the final minute.
All-NBA point guard Cade Cunningham, riding a monster 39-point triple-double, committed a costly turnover with a chance to put Detroit back on top late, when Magic guard Desmond Bane poked the ball out of Cunningham’s hands and out of bounds.
Advertisement
The Pistons got a stop on the other end, but couldn’t finish the possession; a trio of Orlando offensive rebounds bled out the bulk of the final minute. After Magic guard Jalen Suggs knocked down a pair of clutch free throws to go up by three, the Magic fouled Cunningham just before he could get a 3-point shot up; when he missed his first free throw, the All-Star point guard had to intentionally miss the second, in hopes of getting a rebound and a chance at a game-tying 3 on a scramble-drill possession in the closing seconds.
He did it perfectly …
… but Magic wing Anthony Black raced out to block Duncan Robinson’s last-gasp attempt, allowing the Magic to come away with a hard-fought 112-109 win to finish atop East Group B at a perfect 4-0. That earned them not only a spot in the knockout round, but also — with a plus-64 point differential in group play, the highest mark in East — the No. 1 seed in the conference entering the quarterfinals.
Things didn’t go quite down to the wire in Manhattan, but there was no shortage of drama at Madison Square Garden, either.
Advertisement
A 15-1 run spanning the end of the third and start of the fourth quarters put the Knicks in control of their East Group C tilt with the visiting Bucks … who responded in kind, with a pair of Kyle Kuzma 3-pointers keying a 14-3 jolt that made it a one-possession game with just over five minutes to go. With the contest and spot in the quarterfinals in the balance, though, Jalen Brunson came out of the Knicks bullpen to close the door, with six points and an assist in the final four minutes, plus a steal leading to a game-icing Mikal Bridges dunk to finish off a 118-109 win.
The loss eliminated Milwaukee, preventing Giannis Antetokounmpo and Doc Rivers from having the chance to defend their NBA Cup crown. (Not that there aren’t bigger issues to deal with in Bucksville these days.) The victory pushed New York past the Heat, whom they’d beaten head-to-head in group play, to the top of East Group C, and bumped Miami, the lone non-group-winner in the East to finish group play at 3-1, into the wild card spot.
That cemented the conference’s final four, setting up an intra-Florida clash between the top-seeded Magic and No. 4 Heat, and an Atlantic Division battle between the No. 3 Knicks and second-seeded Toronto Raptors, who had already sewn up an undefeated run through East Group A.
What to know about Heat-Magic (6 p.m. ET, Prime Video)
The good news for the Magic: They’re 2-0 against the Heat already this season, having taken Miami down on opening night and again just last week, with do-it-all forward Franz Wagner feasting against the Heat defense: 28 points, 4.5 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game in the two victories, shooting 53.8% from the floor and 42.9% from 3-point land with just four turnovers in 70 minutes of work.
Advertisement
The bad news: Wagner left Sunday’s loss to the Knicks with a left leg injury after being fouled by New York center Ariel Hukporti on an alley-oop attempt midway through the first quarter. The fifth-year pro needed to be helped off the court and back to the locker room, did not return, and was subsequently diagnosed with a high left ankle sprain that will knock him out of the knockout round.
With Wagner — off to a sensational start to the season, averaging 23.4 points, 6.2 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game on 49/35/82 shooting splits heading into Sunday — unable to suit up, Orlando could have a tough time scoring against a Heat defense that ranks fifth in the NBA in points allowed per possession, according to Cleaning the Glass. On one hand, the recent return of All-Star forward Paolo Banchero from a groin injury should help; on the other, though, the Magic have scored like a bottom-three offense this season when Banchero and Bane have shared the floor without Wagner on hand to connect all the dots.
Points have been at something of a premium for the Heat of late, too. After sprinting out of the gates with a newly minted high-octane offense that eschews pick-and-roll play in favor of persistent driving and perpetual motion, Miami has been a middle-of-the-pack attack over the past 10 games. That stretch has included five of the Heat’s least efficient scoring performances of the season and, notably, five of their slowest-paced games and their three worst transition offensive outings of the year to date … which have come in their last three games. They lost all three of them — including one to the Magic, on Dec. 5.
Advertisement
With Wagner unavailable, if Banchero’s still limited on his minutes restriction, Orlando’s best chance of advancing might be leaning on its defense — one of the NBA’s best at limiting opponents on the fast break — to grind Miami’s gears, force Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Norman Powell and Co. to execute in the half-court, and to, as Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra put it after a recent loss to the Kings, win a game that isn’t played to Miami’s newfound identity. That could be a recipe for a slugfest — the type of ground-and-pound affair the Magic have favored throughout Jamahl Mosley’s tenure, but also one that Spo’s certainly got plenty of experience digging out of the mud in Miami.
(Keep an eye on Jalen Suggs in this one. Not for any particular reason; he’s just the kind of audacious player, in the best and worst senses of that word, who’s always worth keeping an eye on.)
What to know about Knicks-Raptors (8:30 p.m. ET, Prime Video)
In the season’s first meeting between these two clubs, New York blew the Raptors’ doors off in a 22-point drubbing that saw six Knicks crack double figures. Toronto was short-handed in that one, missing starting center Jakob Poeltl — one reason why the Knicks won the rebounding battle 61-40, with a season-high 25 offensive rebounds (including seven in less than 17 minutes for reserve center Mitchell Robinson) — and ex-Knicks wing RJ Barrett.
Advertisement
Toronto’s offense, a surprise top-five unit over the first month of the season, has begun to sputter ever since Barrett sprained his right knee. Over the last eight games, the Raptors have scored just 109.2 points per 100 possessions — the second-lowest mark in the NBA over that span, ahead of only the similarly plunging Bulls — with Brandon Ingram struggling across the board (43.6% from the floor and 60.6% from the free throw line in that span, with more turnovers than assists) and the Raptors searching, often fruitlessly, for another source of shot creation alongside Scottie Barnes and Immanuel Quickley.
Barrett might not be a star himself, but what he brings to the table — running the floor in transition, cutting off the ball and running a second-side pick-and-roll in the half-court, burrowing his way into the paint off a dribble handoff and getting to the free-throw line more frequently than any other Raptor — helps the whole Toronto attack come together. The starting lineup of Poeltl, Barnes, Ingram, Barrett and Quickley has outscored opponents by 6.3 points per 100 possessions this season, on the strength of an offense that’s scoring at near-best-in-the-league levels. Subtract Barrett from that equation, though, and the rest of Toronto’s core begins to look significantly less than the sum of its parts, getting outscored by 3.1 points per 100 with an offense scoring like the Wizards and Tyrese Haliburton-less Pacers.
In a related story: The Raptors announced Monday that Barrett’s still on the mend …
… which figures to make the already difficult task of taking down a Knicks team that has won seven of its last eight — and that just got ex-Raptors forward OG Anunoby, playing arguably the best all-around ball of his career, back in the lineup — that much tougher.
Advertisement
That’s doubly true if Karl-Anthony Towns is able to go. The All-Star big man led the way in New York’s win over Toronto with 22 points on 15 shots; he also missed Sunday’s win over the Magic with left calf tightness. The Knicks have blitzed opponents by 19.3 points per 100 possessions with Towns, Anunoby, Brunson and Bridges on the floor this season — the third-highest net rating among 85 four-man groupings to log at least 150 minutes together, according to NBA Advanced Stats. Having them all available would be a big boost for a Knicks team that’s gone just 3-6 away from the Garden this season.
What comes next?
The winners of Tuesday’s single-elimination quarterfinal games (and Wednesday’s West matchups — Suns-Thunder and Spurs-Lakers) will advance to Las Vegas, where the semifinals will be held on Saturday, Dec. 13. The championship game for the NBA Cup will take place on Tuesday, Dec. 16.
That championship game will be the only one in the entire tournament that won’t also count toward participants’ regular-season record and statistics. For those two teams, it will count as Game 83. The four teams that lose in the quarterfinals will each play one regular-season game against one another, too, with the games coming on Dec. 11, 12, 14 or 15.
Advertisement
Making the quarterfinals guarantees every player on the participating teams a payout; to the winners, though, go greater spoils, with the tournament champion taking home the biggest bank.
For the inaugural in-season tournament, the prize pool operated in nice round numbers: $50,000 for each player on teams that lose in the quarterfinals; $100,000 for players on teams that lose in the semifinals; $200,000 for players on the team that loses in the final game; and a crisp $500,000 for everyone on the team that hoists the NBA Cup. The math has changed a bit year-over-year, thanks to a passage in the collective bargaining agreement between the NBA and its players union stipulating that those prize payouts rise by a “growth factor” tied to any increase in the basketball-related income (BRI) that the league generates.
Advertisement
BRI has gone up from over the past two seasons; thus, so have the payouts:
When is $500,000 not $500,000 for anyone, Mr. Larsson? When it’s actually $530,933. (Nice work if you can get it.)
