{"id":111449,"date":"2024-12-10T10:40:16","date_gmt":"2024-12-10T15:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=111449"},"modified":"2024-12-10T10:40:16","modified_gmt":"2024-12-10T15:40:16","slug":"the-best-storylines-quarter-final-nba-cup-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/10\/the-best-storylines-quarter-final-nba-cup-games\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Storylines of the Quarter Final NBA Cup Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NBA Cup schedule<\/a> continues Tuesday when the Quarterfinals start. The eight teams that will compete to become the champion of the NBA Cup games are the Milwaukee Bucks, Orlando Magic, Oklahoma City Thunder, Dallas Mavericks, New York Knicks, Atlanta Hawks, Houston Rockets, and the Golden State Warriors. Every game of the Quarterfinals should be exciting, but we are going to look at the three best storylines of the NBA Cup bracket.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Best Storylines of the Quarter Final NBA Cup Games<\/h2>\n

Warriors vs Rockets, A Bitter Rivalry<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Rockets can\u2019t seem to escape the Warriors. Since back in the James Harden<\/a> era, the Warriors have had the Rockets number. Starting in 2015, the Warriors beat the Rockets in four different playoff series, including two Western Conference Finals. Now, the Warriors find themselves on a 15-game head-to-head winning streak<\/a> against the Rockets. The Warriors vs Rockets rivalry may not be as heated as it once was, but there is still bad blood between these teams.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Rockets have been better than the Warriors this season but still haven\u2019t been able to grab a win against their rivals. It looked like their game against each other last week might finally end the streak, but once again, the Warriors prevailed. The Warriors were without their two best players<\/a>, Stephen Curry<\/a> and Draymond Green,<\/a> in the game, yet still managed to find a way to win. The Rockets will be dying to get their revenge as well as break their 15-game losing streak.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mavericks vs Thunder, Western Conference Finals Preview?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Mavericks vs Thunder game brings multiple levels of intrigue. Firstly, it will represent a battle between two of the best players in the league, Luka Doncic<\/a> and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a>. They started the season as two of the potential favorites to win the MVP award<\/a>\u00a0and have not disappointed. Luka is averaging 28.7 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 8.1 assists this season, while Shai is averaging 29.8 points, 6.3 assists, and 5.3 rebounds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On top of the star power in this matchup is the possibility that these teams could meet in this season’s Western Conference Finals. The Mavericks were the Western Conference champions last season and could very easily reach that stage once again. The Thunder, on the other hand, fell short to the Mavericks in last year’s playoffs but, with a revamped roster, are now favorites to win the conference.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hawks vs Knicks, Drama in MSG<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Hawks vs Knicks game is all about the drama between Trae Young<\/a> and New York Knicks fans. After an exciting playoff matchup a few years ago, where Young solidified himself as a villain to New York Basketball, the rivalry has only gotten more fun.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Almost every Hawks vs Knicks game in Madison Square Garden includes at least a few anti-Young chants from the crowd, and this game should certainly deliver that. On top of that, the Hawks are on a three-game road winning streak, while the Knicks have won seven of their last ten and are starting to prove themselves as the contenders many expected this season. This will be a fun one on the NBA Cup schedule.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The NBA Cup schedule continues Tuesday when the Quarterfinals start. The eight teams that will compete to become the champion of the NBA Cup games are the Milwaukee Bucks, Orlando Magic, Oklahoma City Thunder, Dallas Mavericks, New York Knicks, Atlanta Hawks, Houston Rockets, and the Golden State Warriors. Every game of the Quarterfinals should be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5284,"featured_media":111510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,4,1608,30,25,31,12,22],"tags":[49441,409,1133,1489,48,1349],"class_list":["post-111449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","category-hawks","category-basketball","category-mavericks","category-warriors","category-rockets","category-knicks","category-thunder","tag-2024-emirates-nba-cup","tag-draymond-green","tag-luka-doncic","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","tag-stephen-curry","tag-trae-young"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111449"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111511,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111449\/revisions\/111511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}