Oklahoma City took care of business on Friday night in the Paycom Center, staving off the Phoenix Suns to cling to a 123-119 win. This left the Bricktown Ballers with a perfect 4-0 record in pool play with the +75 point differential earning the Thunder the top seed in the NBA Cup Knockout stage tournament.
The Phoenix Suns, thanks to their slim loss to Oklahoma City, grabbed the lone wild card spot and snuck into the four seed to have a rematch with the OKC Thunder in the Paycom Center on Dec. 10. The winner of that game will advance to Vegas for the final four of the NBA Cup, taking on the winner of the Los Angeles Lakers vs. San Antonio Spurs tilt for the right to make the NBA Cup Finals against the Eastern Conference Representative.
The two losers from the first round will play to make up their 82 game schedule while the winners are in Vegas.
In the Eastern Conference, the Orlando Magic will battle the Miami Heat while the Toronto Raptors and New York Knicks face off. All of the NBA Cup tournament will be shown exclusively on Amazon Prime TV from here on out.
The Oklahoma City Thunder are sitting at 19-1. They have already beaten two of the three possible matchups in the Western Conference this season and haven’t played the Spurs yet, with these two teams set to meet on Dec. 23 and Dec. 25 at the end of this month for a pair of must-see games.
Last season, the Thunder made it to the NBA Cup Final, the second annual championship bout, against the Milwaukee Bucks where Cream City made quick work of the Bricktown Ballers to win their first NBA Cup Championship. It was one of the few things the OKC Thunder didn’t accomplish a year ago.
Now, they have their shot yet again to add a banner to the rafters of the Paycom Center and add to their extensive resume.
Oklahoma City should be able to make it back to Vegas but the Suns in a rematch present an interesting threat as their defense has been stellar all season long finding ways to hang around in games as they did on Friday night with big shots from the likes of Devin Booker and Collin Gillespie.
Up next, the Oklahoma City Thunder do battle with the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday as part of a two-game road trip that wraps up on Tuesday against the Golden State Warriors before returning home for a Friday night clash with the Dallas Mavericks and a quick one game road trip against the Utah Jazz. Then, the Thunder will finally return to their NBA Cup schedule on Dec. 10 against the Suns at 6:30 PM CT on Amazon Prime.