Delaplaine Seed Company

11/29 00:40 CST The NBA Cup quarterfinal field is set: Heat-Magic, Knicks-Raptors, Suns-Thunder, Spurs-Lakers The NBA Cup quarterfinal field is set: Heat-Magic, Knicks-Raptors, Suns-Thunder, Spurs-Lakers By TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer The NBA Cup quarterfinal 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 quarterfinal berths from the East on Friday night, topping the reigning Cup champion Milwaukee Bucks 118-109 to win East Group C. The Bucks' loss prevented them from moving on to the quarterfinals. "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, which also finished 3-1 to earn the East wild card. Oklahoma City --- the defending NBA champion which is now 19-1 on the season --- held off Phoenix on Friday to win West Group A and grab a quarterfinal 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 quarterfinal 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 quarterfinals. "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 on Friday night --- 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 Dec. 5, their second time there this season, then will go back for a Cup quarterfinal four days later. "It's great," Orlando's Desmond Bane said when told the Magic got a home Cup quarterfinal. "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 quarterfinal spot going into Friday.

Quarterfinal schedule (All games on Amazon Prime, all times EST) Tuesday, Dec. 9 --- Miami at Orlando, 6 p.m.; New York at Toronto, 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 10 --- Phoenix at Oklahoma City, 7:30 p.m.; San Antonio at L.A. Lakers, 10 p.m. The Miami-Orlando loser will play the New York-Toronto loser, and the Phoenix-Oklahoma City loser will play the San Antonio-L.A. Lakers loser in regular season contests on either Dec. 14 or Dec. 15. For the quarterfinal winners, the semifinals are in Las Vegas on Dec. 13 and those games will also count toward the regular-season standings. The championship game --- which doesn't count in the standings --- is in Las Vegas on Dec. 16.

What happens next The 22 teams that missed the quarterfinals all now have two more regular-season games added to their schedules to push their total to the full 82. All teams entered the season with only 80 games on the calendar to allow for what happens in the NBA Cup. Those games: Dec. 11 --- L.A. Clippers at Houston, Boston at Milwaukee, Portland at New Orleans, Denver at Sacramento. Dec. 12 --- Chicago at Charlotte, Atlanta at Detroit, Indiana at Philadelphia, Cleveland at Washington, Utah at Memphis, Brooklyn at Dallas, Minnesota at Golden State. Dec. 14 --- Washington at Indiana, Philadelphia at Atlanta, Charlotte at Cleveland, Milwaukee at Brooklyn, Sacramento at Minnesota, Golden State at Portland. Dec. 15 --- Detroit at Boston, New Orleans at Chicago, Dallas at Utah, Houston at Denver, Memphis at L.A. Clippers.

Money matters Players on the quarterfinal teams will each get $53,903. The payout increases to $106,187 for berths in the semifinals, $212,373 for a spot in the final --- and $530,933 for each player on the winning team. Two-way players will receive half those amounts, if applicable. ___ AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA

Weather Grain Rice News Futures Soybeans News Portfolio Cattle News Cotton News Markets Page