Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors delivered the performance of the night across Friday’s NBA Cup group-stage contests. <\/p>\n
Curry went for 49 points in a West Group C win over Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs.<\/p>\n
Golden State’s win placed all five teams in West Group C on a 1-1 record. That will be the most competitive group over the next few weeks. <\/p>\n
The other two Western Conference groups have two clear front-runners, while there’s a bit more separation in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n
Toronto (2-0; +23 point differential) Cleveland (1-1; +23)Atlanta (1-1; +8)Indiana (0-1; -20)Washington (0-1; -34)Detroit (2-0; +27)Orlando (2-0; +20)Boston (1-1; -12)Philadelphia (0-2; -10)Brooklyn (0-2; -25)Milwaukee (2-0; +29)Miami (1-1; +10)New York (1-1; -2)Chicago (1-1; -6)Charlotte (0-2; -31)Minnesota (2-0; +54)Oklahoma City (1-0; +31)Phoenix (1-0; +22)Sacramento (0-2; -45)Utah (0-2; -62)Los Angeles Lakers (2-0; +19)Los Angeles Clippers (2-0; +8)Memphis (1-1; +9)New Orleans (0-2; -16)Dallas (0-2; -20)Denver (1-1; +23)Houston (1-1; +13)San Antonio (1-1; +10)Portland (1-1; -22)Golden State (1-1; -24)<\/p>\n
All three of the Western Conference groups are up for grabs. <\/p>\n
Golden State’s win over San Antonio leveled the playing field across West Group C. <\/p>\n
All five teams are now 1-1 in group play. The Denver Nuggets currently lead with a superior point differential.<\/p>\n
Although the Warriors won on Friday, they are last in West Group C because of the 25-point loss they suffered against Denver. <\/p>\n
If Curry and Co. keep winning, there’s still a chance to get through as the group winner. <\/p>\n
San Antonio isn’t out of the mix either, but it needs to win twice on the road in Portland and Denver to top the group.<\/p>\n
West Group B will likely come down to the battle of Los Angeles on November 25. The Lakers and Clippers need to run up the score in their other group-stage games to have a shot at the top second-place spot.<\/p>\n
West Group A looks like it will come down to the November 26 meeting between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Oklahoma City Thunder. The reigning NBA champion has the edge in that matchup until proven otherwise. <\/p>\n
There’s a lot more clarity across the Eastern Conference groups.<\/p>\n
The Detroit Pistons and Orlando Magic are 2-0 atop East Group B. The winner of their head-to-head meeting on November 28 will likely advance as group champion. <\/p>\n
The Milwaukee Bucks are clear of the pack in East Group C after their overtime triumph over the Charlotte Hornets. <\/p>\n
Nothing changed in East Group A on Friday, but the Toronto Raptors are still the favorite to advance since they own head-to-head victories over the Cleveland Cavaliers and Atlanta Hawks. <\/p>\n
Point differential matters in the race to advance as the best second-place team in the East. A close loss are preferred by whomever falls in the Detroit-Orlando matchup.<\/p>\n
Cleveland might be the favorite, though, to be the top second-place team in the East. The Cavs could win big against both Indiana and Atlanta and advance with a superior point differential. <\/p>\n
East Group Winners: Toronto, Detroit, Milwaukee<\/p>\n
West Group Winners: Oklahoma City, Los Angeles Lakers, Denver<\/p>\n
Best Second-Place Teams: Cleveland, Minnesota<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors delivered the performance of the night across Friday’s NBA Cup group-stage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-285639","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}