{"id":90383,"date":"2024-08-14T07:30:57","date_gmt":"2024-08-14T11:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=90383"},"modified":"2024-08-14T00:41:57","modified_gmt":"2024-08-14T04:41:57","slug":"lakers-news-road-to-defending-nba-cup-trophy-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/08\/14\/lakers-news-road-to-defending-nba-cup-trophy-revealed\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers News: Road to Defending NBA Cup Trophy Revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last season, the Los Angeles Lakers claimed the inaugural In-Season Tournament Championship trophy with a <\/span>123-109 win over the Indiana Pacers<\/span><\/a>. They now have a chance to defend that title with a gauntlet of matchups in the rebranded Emirates NBA Cup, where they have been placed in West Group B.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lakers News: Road to Defending NBA Cup Trophy Revealed<\/b><\/h2>\n

Nov. 15: Lakers at Spurs<\/b><\/h3>\n

7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN<\/h4>\n

The Lakers open up their IST title defense against <\/span>Victor Wembanyama<\/span><\/a> and the Spurs. LA won last year\u2019s regular season series 3-1. Their lone loss to San Antonio came in December\u2014when <\/span>Anthony Davis<\/span><\/a> was out and <\/span>Devin Vassell<\/span><\/a> dropped a career-high 36 points. This time around, the Spurs look noticeably different. They drafted <\/span>Stephon Castle<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Harrison Ingram<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Juan Nu\u00f1ez<\/span><\/a> and added veterans <\/span>Chris Paul<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Harrison Barnes<\/span><\/a>, among others, <\/span>this offseason<\/span><\/a>. The Lakers will be challenged by the Spurs\u2019 added length in the frontcourt, and will also have to hold off any energetic bursts from their young players.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nov. 19: Lakers vs. Jazz<\/b><\/h3>\n

10:30 p.m. ET, NBA League Pass<\/h4>\n

The Lakers and Jazz meet up once again in the Emirates NBA Cup. Although the purple and gold took care of business in the group stage, the regular season matchups came with mixed results. Similar to the Spurs, the Lakers won the season series against the Jazz 3-1, with their only loss coming without <\/span>LeBron James<\/span><\/a>. Their last matchup was one to remember, as LA prevailed in an overtime thriller, 135-133.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though the Jazz are likely destined for a bottom-tier finish, the Lakers should not take them lightly. <\/span>Lauri Markkanen<\/span><\/a>\u2014who had been a Laker trade target before signing a max extension\u2014has proven he can get hot night in and night out. Aside from Markkanen, the Jazz have a plethora of other offensive weapons in <\/span>Collin Sexton<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>John Collins<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Jordan Clarkson<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Keyonte George<\/span><\/a>. They also drafted three rookies\u2014<\/span>Cody Williams<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Isaiah Collier<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Kyle Filipowski<\/span><\/a>\u2014who could all slide into the rotation if needed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nov. 26: Lakers at Suns<\/strong><\/h3>\n

10 p.m. ET, ESPN<\/h4>\n

The Lakers and Suns present a marquee matchup in the second-to-last game of group play. Phoenix continues to have title aspirations behind their \u201cbig 3\u201d of <\/span>Kevin Durant<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Devin Booker<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Bradley Beal<\/span><\/a>, and this time, they used their offseason to shore up the depth around them. Aside from re-signing most of their own free agents, the Suns brought in <\/span>Tyus Jones<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Mason Plumlee<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Monte Morris<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>TyTy Washington Jr.<\/span><\/a> Like the Jazz, the Lakers and Suns met in last year\u2019s In-Season Tournament, with the Lakers prevailing in both the group stage and quarterfinals by a mere three points. The regular season series, however, was a different story, as Phoenix comfortably won three of the four meetings. The Suns will arguably be LA\u2019s biggest test throughout group play, as the Lakers attempt to take down a major big three with the talent to back them up as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nov. 29: Lakers vs. Thunder<\/b><\/h3>\n

10 p.m. ET, ESPN<\/h4>\n

West Group B play will end with the Lakers facing the OKC Thunder, who earned the No. 1 seed in last season\u2019s playoffs. The Lakers won the season series 3-1, but these games were far from blowouts, with LA having to come from behind on multiple occasions. The keys to their regular season wins were big performances from Davis, James and <\/span>D\u2019Angelo Russell<\/span><\/a>, with any one of them able to take over seemingly at the push of a button. LeBron scored <\/span>40 points on Dec. 23<\/span><\/a>; Davis had <\/span>27 points and 15 rebounds on Jan. 15<\/span><\/a>; and Russell erupted for <\/span>24 points (including five three-pointers) on Mar. 5<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

As with nearly every other team in the West, the Thunder made some notable additions this offseason. Their biggest one\u2014quite literally\u2014was prying <\/span>Isaiah Hartenstein<\/span><\/a> from the Knicks in free agency. They also swapped <\/span>Josh Giddey<\/span><\/a> for <\/span>Alex Caruso<\/span><\/a> and drafted <\/span>Nikola Topic<\/span><\/a> despite his torn ACL. All of those weapons surrounding <\/span>Chet Holmgren<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/span><\/a> make the Thunder a key roadblock for the Lakers in their journey to win the Emirates NBA Cup.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last season, the Los Angeles Lakers claimed the inaugural In-Season Tournament Championship trophy with a 123-109 win over the Indiana Pacers. They now have a chance to defend that title with a gauntlet of matchups in the rebranded Emirates NBA Cup, where they have been placed in West Group B. Lakers News: Road to Defending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4265,"featured_media":90388,"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":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,26,62,22,28,34,24],"tags":[240,311,4292,229,1594,307,352,2806,141,998,321,69,4665,926,38,1489,49264,4669],"class_list":["post-90383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-lakers","category-nba","category-thunder","category-suns","category-spurs","category-jazz","tag-anthony-davis","tag-bradley-beal","tag-chet-holmgren","tag-chris-paul","tag-collin-sexton","tag-dangelo-russell","tag-devin-booker","tag-devin-vassell","tag-harrison-barnes","tag-john-collins","tag-jordan-clarkson","tag-kevin-durant","tag-keyonte-george","tag-lauri-markkanen","tag-lebron-james","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","tag-stephon-castle","tag-victor-wembanyama"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90383","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\/4265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}