‘Love it’: Players excited as NBA Cup quarterfinals are set
Khris Middleton had a thought pop into his head immediately after Milwaukee topped Miami to finish group play in the NBA’s In-Season Tournament with an unbeaten record.
“We’re going to Vegas,” he said. Maybe. But not yet. Middleton didn’t know he’d skipped one important step – the quarter-finals. Some people are evidently still learning the tournament format. It gets simple now, though, with the inaugural event down to its final eight teams.
In the Eastern Conference, it’ll be Milwaukee hosting New York on 5 December and Indiana playing host to Boston on 4 December; in the Western Conference, it’ll be the Los Angeles Lakers hosting Phoenix on 5 December and Sacramento – thanks to a huge comeback over Golden State – playing host to New Orleans on 4 December.
The winners go to Las Vegas for semi-final games on 7 December, and those winners play on 9 December to be the first team to hoist the NBA Cup and win $500,000 per player, $250,000 for those on two-way deals.
“It’d be pretty cool to be part of history,” Middleton said. “You always want to be the first to win something. It’d definitely be cool to be the first to win the first In-Season Tournament.”
Milwaukee, Indiana, the Lakers and the Kings all made all the guesswork easy; they were the teams that went 4-0 in group play. Everything else came down to tiebreakers.
In the East, Boston, New York, Cleveland, Orlando and Brooklyn all went 3-1 and kept trying to pile up points. Boston outscored the teams in their group by 27 points, compared with a plus-22 differential for Orlando and plus-20 for Brooklyn. That meant the Celtics won East Group C.
“You just know what the reason is,” Nets forward Mikal Bridges said. “It’s trying to make it to Vegas. There’s no harm at all. We know that point differential is another key besides just winning.”
Still, chasing points led to some weirdness in the Celtics’ blowout victory over Chicago on Tuesday.
Boston, up by 32 points with 7:02 left, intentionally fouled Chicago’s Andre Drummond to try and get the ball back and ensure they would win any differential tiebreaker over the Nets and Magic. Bulls coach Billy Donovan didn’t like it, understandably, and seeing Boston’s Payton Pritchard shoot a three-pointer – it missed – when his team was up by 26 with 10.8 seconds remaining was something out of the ordinary as well.
“I had to explain to him, ‘This is what our people are telling us, this is what we have to do, this is the process towards protecting our lead,’” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said of his in-game conversation with Donovan. “It gives us the best chance to win and advance.”
New York got the East wild card on point differential over the Cavaliers, Magic and Nets.
“I understand the concept,” Knicks guard Josh Hart said. “But it’s weird.”
Here’s more weirdness: All the quarterfinal matchups will be between teams that are now assured of playing each other five times in this regular season – something that hasn’t happened in the league since 2003-04, when Miami and New Jersey had five meetings.
The West race didn’t end up with quite as much drama as the East. Phoenix (3-1) got the wild card over Minnesota (3-1) because of point differential – the Suns outscored opponents by 34 points, the Timberwolves finished with a differential of zero.
Golden State needed to beat Sacramento
by 12 points to win West Group C; the Warriors led by 24 in the first half and by 18 midway through the third quarter, but the Kings roared back to end Golden State’s tournament hopes with a 124-123 win.
The 22 teams that didn’t make the quarterfinals will play regular-season games on 6 and 8 December to fill out the two remaining spots on their 82game schedule. The teams that lose in the quarterfinals will play a tobe-added regular-season game against each other, East v East and West v West. The semi-final games count as regularseason games as well – and the championship game will not count in the standings.
“Love it. I wish I had an opportunity to be still playing for going to Vegas and the opportunity to play for something in the inaugural year and winning it,” Heat guard Kyle Lowry said. “But, you know, I think it’s just going to be a really good thing.”
And no matter who wins in Vegas, every team still has a chance at the big prize – the NBA title.
“We still have a marathon to run,” Lowry said. “That was a sprint.”
NBA Cup quarter-finals
East
Milwaukee Bucks v New York Knicks (5 December)
Indiana Pacers v Boston Celtics (4 December)
West
Los Angeles Lakers v Phoenix Suns (5 December)
Sacramento Kings v New Orleans Pelicans (4 December)
ever, the business case from NA was described as not “sufficiently robust”, according to a statement from Wells’ office.
The government provides almost $4m in annual funding to the code, and remains open to further funding for the sport.
“Netball is too important for it to not be successful and we will continue funding discussions with a view to ensuring the 2027 World Cup provides the sport its Matildas moment,” Wells said.
NA has been approach for comment.
The announcement comes on the same day the Australian Netball Players’ Association (ANPA) president Jo Weston was brought to tears at a press conference in Melbourne when asked about the turmoil surrounding this year’s Netball Australia awards night. “It’s been really hard, and all of us just want to be able to move forward with what we think is fair and reasonable for our playing group.”
ANPA and NA plan to meet on Friday to negotiate an end to the long-running dispute. “We want to feel like we’re valued, we’re respected and listened to, and hopefully tomorrow when we’re in the room we’ll be able to get something done for our players,” Weston said.
ANPA chief executive and former Diamonds captain Kathryn Harby-Williams said she had been through many emotional conversations with players over the past two months as she revealed the toll of the pay dispute.
“I speak to players and I have had players sobbing, I’ve had them weeping,” Harby-Williams said. “Players have slept in their cars, players have had to move out of their homes and move across the country back to their families. That’s the toll that this is taking on these players.”
The players rejected an offer from NA on Wednesday that Harby-Williams’ described as a “publicity stunt”. “For it to be put on the table now is confusing because it was a part-deal,” Harby-Williams said. “I thought a page was missing because there was no reference to revenue-sharing or the commercial arrangement.”
NA chief executive Kelly Ryan conceded the ongoing pay battle could impact the 2024 Super Netball season – due to begin in April – and have a lasting impact on the sport in Australia. Ryan said she is unsure whether players have a full appreciation of netball’s financial struggles following the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re still in a financial tightrope,” Ryan told SEN on Thursday. “We’re trying to make sure we make the right investments in the right areas, that includes our players, but minimising the impact on us longer term. We want to get from where we are today to out of this financial situation as quick as we possibly can.”
NA had hoped to reach a deal on Wednesday with a new offer that included an 11 per cent pay rise backdated to 1 October, the day after the last collective player agreement (CPA) ended, while the groups continue to work on the details of the agreement.
The governing body agreed to the union’s demands for a first-ever revenue-share proposal, which had been a sticking point, however they want players to return to work while the final terms of the model are negotiated. But the players want the deal done before they are back at training, with ANPA board member Maddy Turner saying they are seeking 15 per cent of revenue above what is forecast from any new sponsors. “It’s not much but it feels like a big fight to get what we want, but the players are all united,” the NSW Swifts defender told Channel 10’s The Project.
The parties have been at loggerheads since February with Super Netball players boycotting the annual awards dinner last Saturday, with the main award named after Ellis. Diamonds players attended under the threat of legal action, which prompted former captain Ellis to accuse NA of treating its national stars with “callous disregard”.
Former Diamonds captain Ellis was a host on The Project and backed the players’ stance on the latest offer saying it was “offensive”. “I find the media release which has come out this afternoon with this offer ... that we’re going to give the players almost everything that they want, it’s a little bit offensive,” Ellis said.
“The players are standing strong and saying no, we want to talk about this revenue-share model and this partnership model,” Ellis said. “My only concern now is the relationship is so poisoned between the two parties that we may not end up with any kind of meaningful agreement in the near future.”
Ellis added that the federal government may have to step in to run the sport. In the latest proposal NA boosted their offer of a guaranteed total increase in benefits to 23 per cent ($1.45 million). Minimum salaries will rise from $40,000 to $46,600 with ongoing increases over the term of a threeyear CPA, pushing the average wage to $86,500.