LAS VEGAS \u2014 The NBA Cup is not the NBA Finals. It is, however, something more than just a regular season game \u2014 putting half a million dollars per player on the line will have that effect.<\/p>\n
Yes, Knicks or Spurs players want to grab that bag. However, they also see the Cup as a stepping stone to where they want to be next May and June.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think history is kind of showing that if you can make it to this Cup, then you can win a championship,\u201d San Antonio\u2019s De\u2019Aaron Fox said.<\/p>\n
Last season, Oklahoma City lost in the NBA Cup championship game but went on to win the NBA title in June. The Lakers, who won the inaugural tournament in 2023, did so with essentially the same core that won the NBA title three years before. Los Angeles beat an Indiana team that advanced to the NBA Finals last season.<\/p>\n
The stepping-stone analogy particularly resonated with a young Spurs team looking to grow into a contender.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a high-stakes game that both teams are going to be very invested in winning,\u201d San Antonio\u2019s Victor Wembanyama said. \u201cIt just shows that we are preparing and we will pass the next step for more significant games in the playoffs. This is a complicated explanation, but it\u2019s as simple as that: As competitors, we want to win every game, and this one brings something new on the table, so we want to win it even more.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing able to have this, obviously it\u2019s not going to be the exact same, but you get a little glimpse of what it could be like playing in the Playoffs and the different officiating,\u201d Fox said. \u201cNo matter how much they say they don\u2019t officiate the games differently in the playoffs, we all have eyes, and we can see it. But being able to play in as many of those games, it definitely helps you come playoff time.\u201d<\/p>\n
These Knicks have more playoff experience \u2014 they were in the Eastern Conference Finals last season \u2014 but also see the Cup as a path forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the Cup is big for us just for the energy it brings to our team\u2026” Karl-Anthony Towns said, adding that the energy and winning foster belief this team will need in the postseason. \u201cI think it brings great energy to the team, great mojo to the team. It also brings that feeling of winning. No matter if it\u2019s the Cup, NBA Finals, winning any game, when you get that feeling of winning, it\u2019s addictive. Obviously, I want us to have that mindset where we\u2019re addicted to the next championship if we can win this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Can Knicks stop Wemby? Can the Spurs stop Brunson?<\/p>\n
As for the game itself, Wembanyama\u2019s return against the Thunder in the semifinals changed the dynamics. While the Spurs\u2019 speedy guards \u2014 De\u2019Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper \u2014 can all get downhill and touch the paint, Wemby adds another dynamic.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not going to be able to guard a guy like that one-on-one,\u201d Knicks coach Mike Brown said. \u201cYou try to put length, size, physicality at the point of attack when it comes to him, but it\u2019s got to be five guys guarding the basketball at all times\u2026 But we have some pretty good defenders with length, and hopefully they can, at the point of attack, try to make it as difficult as possible with him, knowing that they have help behind them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Spurs have their own defensive challenge in slowing Jalen Brunson. San Antonio is loaded with long defensive wings who are strong at the point of attack, but so did Orlando in the semifinals, and Brunson dropped 40. In the quarterfinals, it was Toronto with their long, rangy defenders, and Brunson dropped 35 on them.<\/p>\n
What might be the story in this game is the Knicks\u2019 3-point shooting. Under Brown, the Knicks get 37.4% of their points from beyond the arc, ranking in the top 10 in the league. With Wemby patrolling the paint, New York may need those threes coming over the top of the defense to win this one.<\/p>\n
Towns said the key for the Knicks is to keep doing what got them to this point\u2014and to the Eastern Conference Finals last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything for us is about execution,\u201d Towns said. \u201cI think that\u2019s what\u2019s made us really good recently playing basketball is our execution. So we\u2019ve just got to go out there and find a way to do that for 48 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
If they do, if they win the NBA Cup, it\u2019s something to build on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 The NBA Cup is not the NBA Finals. It is, however, something more than just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-349177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}