The 2024 NBA Cup continued on Friday night and what a night of wild action it brought with 11 games on the slate. We had a 60-point game, a game-winning shot and block, and the third-longest winning streak to begin a season extended.
Before we get to the main takeaways, here are all the results from Friday night’s NBA Cup action, and you can find the Cup standings here.
Heat 124, Pacers 111
Magic 98, 76ers 86
Pistons 99, Raptors 95
Hawks 129, Wizards 117
Cavaliers 144, Bulls 126
Knicks 124, Nets 122
Lakers 120, Spurs 115
Rockets 125, Clippers 104
Pelicans 101, Nuggets 94
Thunder 99, Suns 83
Warriors 123, Grizzlies 118
Timberwolves 130, Kings 126 (OT)
Cavaliers remain perfect
The Cleveland Cavaliers improved to 14-0, the longest winning streak in franchise history at any point in a season, with Friday’s 144-126 home win over the Chicago Bulls. The Cavs, now 1-0 in the NBA Cup, are well over halfway to the best start in NBA history, which belongs to the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors who won their first 24 games.
The final score on Friday was deceiving. This was a four-point game with under three minutes to play, but the Cavaliers closed on a 21-7 flurry to make it look a lot more lopsided on paper.
Cleveland’s 14 straight wins to open the season matches the 2002-03 Dallas Mavericks and the 1957-58 Boston Celtics for third on the all-time list. The Cavaliers can match the second-best start in history, which belongs to the 1993-94 Houston Rockets — who went on to win the championship — if they can beat the Charlotte Hornets on Sunday for a 15th consecutive win.
Cleveland got past Chicago without the services of Evan Mobley, who was out with an illness. No big deal. All fellow big man Jarrett Allen did was put up 24 points, 10 rebounds, three assists, three steals and two blocks on 11-of-15 shooting.
Pair that with 66 combined points from Donovan Mitchell (37) and Darius Garland (29) on 11-of-20 3-point shooting, plus 22 points and four more 3-pointers off the bench for Caris LeVert, and the Cavs, who shot 43 3-pointers and connected on them at a 48% clip, had plenty of offense to go around.
Chicago was led by Coby White (29 points and six 3-pointers) and Nikola Vucevic, who continued his splendid start to the season with 25 points on 11-of-16 shooting.
Brunson, Bridges save Knicks
The New York Knicks are doing all they can to tread water right now. The offense has been spectacular, the defense has been anything but, and it has added up to a 6-6 record after Jalen Brunson hit a game-winner to defeat the Brooklyn Nets, 124-122, on Friday.
New York, which is tied with Orlando atop the East’s NBA Cup Group A with a 2-0 record, didn’t make it easy on itself. After leading by 21 in the closing seconds of the third quarter, the Knicks managed just four points over the first four-plus minutes of the fourth quarter. The drought allowed the Nets to come back, and the Knicks found themselves trailing by a point when they called a timeout with 11 seconds left in the game.
That’s when Brunson did his thing, isolating against Dorian Finney-Smith in the left corner, clearing space with a swing through, and rising up for the go-ahead 3-pointer.
The shot didn’t officially end it, however, because the Nets, now down two, still had six seconds to work with. It looked like Dennis Schroder was on his way to a game-tying layup as he raced back down the court and got behind Knicks forward Mikal Bridges with a clear path to the rim. But Bridges stayed in range and was able to block Schroder’s shot from behind to finish Brooklyn off.
Brunson and Bridges each finished with season-high scoring totals, Brunson with 37 and Bridges with 22. Bridges, who has shot lights out from inside the arc this season but had yet to get his 3-point stroke going (30% entering Friday), made four of his seven 3-pointers, while Brunson finished 12-of-20 overall and 10 of 12 from the free throw line with 16 fourth-quarter points.
DeAaron Fox scores 60 in loss
Fox lit up the Timberwolves for the first 60-point game of the 2024-25 NBA season, which included a 20-point barrage in the fourth quarter as the Kings, playing without DeMar DeRozan and Malik Monk, rallied from a 16-point deficit at the end of three to force overtime, where the Kings ultimately fell short against Minnesota, 130-126.
Interesting note here on 60-point performances from our Sam Quinn:
In all of NBA history, only 25 teams have lost a game in which one of their players scored 60 points. However, five of those games have now come in the calendar year of 2024 alone. Karl-Anthony Towns, Devin Booker, Stephen Curry and Jalen Brunson all lost such games between January and March of 2024. Brunson and Curry also did so in overtime.
LeBron posts another triple-double
That’s a career-high four straight trip-dubs for James, who finished with 15 points, 16 rebounds and 12 assists in the Lakers’ 120-115 win over Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs. This LeBron-running-point experiment is working out pretty well.
Imagine that. One of the best passers and overall smartest players in history at 6-foot-8 who continues to possess incredible scoring leverage is an effective offensive orchestrator. Who woulda thunk it? Perhaps the Lakers didn’t need to go get Russell Westbrook to