LAS VEGAS (AP) — The NBA Cup final doesn’t count. New York will enter with an 18-7 record. San Antonio will enter with an 18-7 record. And when Tuesday night’s game between the Knicks and Spurs is over, those records will be unchanged.
But the game will have plenty of meaning. The teams are sure of that.
A trophy, some bragging rights and a ton of money will be at stake when the Knicks and Spurs play in the NBA Cup title game. It’ll be the first time those franchises have met with a trophy on the line since San Antonio topped New York in the 1999 NBA Finals.
“It’s a high-stakes game that both teams are going to be very invested in winning,” Spurs star Victor Wembanyama said. “It 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’s 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.”
It will be the end of the third in-season event: The Los Angeles Lakers beat Indiana in Year 1 when it was part of what was simply called the In-Season Tournament, and Milwaukee beat Oklahoma City last year after the rebranding to the NBA Cup. At stake: $318,560 per player with a standard contract on the winning team — they’ve secured $212,373 each from the Cup bonus pool by getting to the final, and the winners’ share jumps to $530,933 apiece.
“You’re not winning or gaining anything in your record, but you’re going out there and competing,” Knicks guard Jalen Brunson said. “You’re playing for more than just yourself. You’re playing for your team, your organization and your city. There’s a lot at stake besides the record. You go out there and compete no matter what.”
Added Spurs guard De’Aaron Fox: “People like money. It is what it is. That’s life.”
The financial payoff is one thing. There’s another payoff that could come this spring for the Spurs and Knicks.
The four previous Cup finalists — the Lakers and Pacers, then the Thunder and Bucks — all went to the playoffs after playing for this trophy, with the Pacers making the East finals in 2024 and the Thunder winning the title last season.
“No matter if it’s the Cup, NBA Finals, winning any game, when you get that feeling of winning, it’s addictive,” Knicks forward Karl-Anthony Towns said. “Obviously, I want us to have that mindset where we’re addicted to the next championship if we can win this one. I think this is a great start for us to understand the standards needed to win at a high level, at a championship level.”
Every NBA Cup game counts in the standings, except the final. The NBA regular season is 82 games long and the league — in the Cup era — gives each club an 80-game schedule over the summer, with two more games to be filled in depending on how they perform during the group stage of the tournament.
For the Spurs and Knicks, those two extra games were the Cup quarterfinals and semifinals. This would be an 83rd game, so the league decided when it added the tournament that the Cup final wouldn’t count in the official records or stats for that season.
It won’t change the way the teams play.
“You treat it like a regular game,” Brunson said.
Wembanyama will likely remain on some sort of minutes restriction; he played 21 minutes off the bench on Saturday night in San Antonio’s 111-109 win over Oklahoma City, his first game back after missing 12 with a strained left calf.
The Spurs came into Monday still deciding whether to start Wembanyama against the Knicks.
“When it comes to a guy like Wemby, because at his size and his skillset, nine times out of 10 he’s going to miss because he misses,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “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.”
The Knicks and Spurs both got to the Cup final with 5-1 records in the tournament; they each were 3-1 in group play, then went on the road for quarterfinal wins (New York over Toronto, San Antonio over the Lakers) before New York topped Orlando and San Antonio beat the Thunder in Saturday’s semifinals in Las Vegas.
And now, a game that means nothing. Or everything, depending on perspective.
“I think we go into (Tuesday) trying to win the NBA Cup, and that’s the approach,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “Our guys are really, really excited to be here. They’ve been excited since the start of it. … I think we’ve seen our group really embrace the Cup. We’ve earned the right to be here, and I think we’re going to attack the game and be really fired up to try to go win it.”
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