The game wasn’t over, though the outcome was decided. Milwaukee’s Myles Turner took a pass from Giannis Antetokounmpo and let fly with a 3-pointer from the corner with about six seconds remaining.
It connected — for a 17-point lead.
In 78 of 82 games on the Bucks’ schedule this season, they certainly wouldn’t be racing downcourt to get an open 3-pointer in the final seconds of a game that they were winning by double digits. They would have just dribbled out the clock, flipped the ball to the referee and headed to the locker room.
But this is NBA Cup time, and one of the quirks in the four-game group stage portion of the tournament is a point-differential tiebreaker. Every point might make a difference and cash is on the line for teams that advance in the tournament. That’s why teams are, understandably, running it up in Cup group stage games just in case the tiebreaker comes into play.
“Points differential might matter,” Minnesota coach Chris Finch said earlier this month — after his team beat Utah by 40 in a Cup game and was still shooting 3s up by 44 in the final minutes. “If you get a chance to put 40 points in the bank, you should do it.”
There are nine NBA Cup games on Friday. Toronto can clinch a spot in the quarterfinals with a win and an Indiana loss. Brooklyn, Utah, Dallas and New Orleans would be eliminated with losses. At worst, 25 of the 30 teams will still have a mathematical chance of advancing when Friday’s games are complete. And some of them will be hoping the tiebreaker comes into play.
The run-it-up debate isn’t much of a debate; teams want to advance in the Cup, so the group stage games will keep seeing teams with their foot on the gas until the game ends.
Consider this scenario from an Orlando-Boston game in Cup play: Magic guard Jalen Suggs rebounded his own missed 3-pointer and made a layup for Orlando with 2.4 seconds left in the game. The Celtics then threw a full-court pass and Payton Pritchard tried a layup, only to have it blocked by Franz Wagner with a half-second remaining. The Magic bench roared in celebration, as if the game was on the line. Orlando was winning by 13 points.
“It’s something you think about, absolutely,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said.
Spoelstra and the Heat lost in New York in a Cup game last week, and the Knicks’ Landry Shamet passed up what probably would have been an easy layup in the final seconds. His teammate, Josh Hart, wasn’t happy.
“Josh was cussing (me) out because I didn’t shoot the layup there at the end,” Shamet said in the on-court interview after New York’s 140-130 win. “I should’ve. He’s right. It’s important. This is important to all of us. It’s fun. It’s a fun new element to our league and we want to be in the hunt for it.”
Golden State coach Steve Kerr has long wondered why teams just don’t keep playing until the end. He has no problem with teams trying to keep scoring in Cup games. He also wouldn’t have a problem if teams did it all the time, too.
Kerr remembers a game in 2016 where Jimmer Fredette — then of the Knicks — got fouled by Portland’s Meyers Leonard on a shot attempt with 0.8 seconds left in a game that the Trail Blazers were leading by 21 points.
Leonard apologized not long afterward. It was Fredette’s last game as a Knick; his 10-day contract was expiring, and he’s a native of Glens Falls, New York — so it made some sense that he was trying to end his time with New York’s team on a high note.
“Apparently, it’s also offensive if your lead is cut from 20 to 18 or 17 late in the game,” Kerr said. “It’s just one of those dumb things that there’s no rule. I think it was kind of always understood that when the shot clock ran out, the other team kind of puts up their hands, you just dribble it out, and you don’t go and dunk it. That’s always kind of been understood, but it’s extended to beyond the shot clock now. So now, you’re supposed to take a turnover, and I’m not a believer in that.”
Knicks coach Mike Brown, a former Golden State assistant under Kerr, is fully aware of his former boss’ thoughts on why games should just be played out.
“I feel like I’m competitive — maybe not as much as Steve,” Brown said. “I feel that I’m trying to run up the score, but in the Cup situation it’s natural because of the point differential. And I think at the end of games it should be the way that Steve says. You know, just freaking play.”
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