Bucks, Knicks cruise, advance to NBA Cup’s knockout stage

NEW YORK – The stage for the knockout rounds of the NBA Cup is set, and there will be a new champion as well as an almost entirely different field than last year’s inaugural version.

When the dust settled on Tuesday night, the eight teams were set: Milwaukee Bucks, New York Knicks, Atlanta Hawks and Orlando Magic in the Eastern Conference; and the Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, Golden State Warriors and Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference.

Last year’s NBA Cup champions, the Los Angeles Lakers, were eliminated from advancing to the knockout rounds with losses to the Phoenix Suns and Thunder last week. The Bucks and Knicks are the only teams from the eight that also advanced to the regular season tournament last year.

The quarterfinal matchups next week will be the Magic at the Bucks and the Thunder hosting the Mavericks on Tuesday, the Hawks at the Knicks and the Warriors visiting the Rockets on Wednesday.

“Yeah, it’s great,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said of his team advancing to the quarterfinals. “They put a tournament in front of us and we want to win it. We said it early and we’re 4-0. But we still have a lot of work to do.”

Until Tuesday, much was still up for grabs. The Hawks, Rockets and Warriors were locked into quarterfinal spots as group winners, but the other five spots were up for grabs, including two games in the East — Magic at Knicks and Bucks at Pistons — that had straight win-and- in stakes as they would decide the winners of groups A and B respectively.

The drama of each game didn’t last long, with the Knicks and Bucks riding out to significant breaks and riding from there. The only thing up for debate at that point? Whether the Knicks could possibly knock Orlando, who had a massive plus-60 point differential entering play Tuesday, out of the quarterfinals entirely with a blowout win.

New York actually led by as many as 37 points — the amount the Knicks would need to win by to eliminate the Magic and allow the Boston Celtics to reach the quarterfinals as a wild card instead — in the third quarter. But Orlando eventually battled back in the fourth quarter to make the game a more respectable 121-106 Knicks victory.

“We earned our way into the quarterfinals,” said Magic forward Franz Wagner. “It’s clearly not our best game today, but that’s why you play hard every minute in the other games.

“It feels weird even after a game like this to move on, but that’s just part of it.”

As a result, Orlando became the wild card, and the Magic will travel to the top-seeded Bucks, while the Hawks and Trae Young — who advanced by virtue of beating Boston without Young last month — travel to New York to play the Knicks, with trips to Las Vegas on the line for the winners.

Out West, Houston and Golden State entered Tuesday knowing they just had to win out to clinch home play in the tournament, regardless of what happened elsewhere. But the Warriors gave up a 14-2 run to the Nuggets in Denver before losing 119-115. And Domantas Sabonis had 27 points to lead the Sacramento Kings to a 120-111 home triumph over the Rockets. That opened the door for the Thunder to become the top seed in the West based on point differential thanks to their 133-106 win over the Utah Jazz.

“I wasn’t at all until I knew we were going to win tonight,” Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander told reporters when asked if he had been following what was happening with the NBA Cup standings until Tuesday’s game. “I was just asking around, but it’s too confusing.

“I’ll just win and then we’ll see where we end up.”