NEW YORK—THE NBA Cup quarter-final field was set Friday night, with Miami going to Orlando and New York going to Toronto on the Eastern Conference side, followed by an Oklahoma City-Phoenix rematch and San Antonio facing the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference.
And the defending Cup champions won’t have a chance to go back-to-back in Las Vegas.
New York got the last of the four available quarter-final berths from the East on Friday night, topping the reigning Cup champions Milwaukee Bucks 118-109 to win East Group C. The Bucks’ loss prevented them from moving on to the quarter-finals.
“I told the guys they did a heck of a job finding a way,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said.
Toronto won East Group A, Orlando won East Group B, and both did so with 4-0 records. The Knicks went 3-1 in Group C and finished on top because they held the head-to-head tiebreaker over Miami, who also finished 3-1 to earn the East wild card.
Oklahoma City—the defending NBA champions who are now 19-1 on the season—held off Phoenix on Friday to win West Group A and grab a quarter-final spot, and San Antonio emerged from a back-and-forth battle in the final minutes to beat Denver in the game that decided West Group C and another quarter-final berth.
“I don’t know much about it other than the guys are really excited about it,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “I know we’re in because we won. I know we beat some really good teams to do it…so we feel really good about it.”
The Suns went 3-1 in group play and earned the West’s wild-card spot. Their reward? A rematch with the Thunder in the quarter-finals.
“They’re feisty as hell. They play hard,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said of the Suns.
The Magic won their group with a 112-109 victory over Detroit— and as the East’s top seed, they will play the wild-card Heat.
“We’re so happy to be home,” Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said. “We have some of the best fans in the NBA. They’re going to be back there, supporting us, ready to go. …For us to do this is very special for our guys right now.”
The Heat-Magic, Knicks-Raptors and Thunder-Suns games will create a bit of a schedule quirk. The quarterfinal games count toward the regular-season records, so Miami and Orlando will wind up playing five times this season—the first time that’s happened in the Sunshine State rivalry since 1993-94. The Knicks and Raptors will now also meet five times this season, as will the Thunder and Suns.
The Heat play a regular season game at Orlando on Friday, their second time there this season, then will go back for a Cup quarter-final four days later.
“It’s great,” Orlando’s Desmond Bane said when told the Magic got a home Cup quarter-final. “We’re building. We’re building something special.”
The Lakers, who won the inaugural Cup in 2023, were the only West team to be assured of a quarter-final spot going into Friday.