SPORTSIDE

Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs, Orlando Magic and New York Knicks: the four teams that will play the semifinals and finals in Las Vegas with the opportunity to become the Emirates NBA Cup 2025 winner.

Oklahoma City Thunder

The record in this season is 24-1, 5 on 24 of these victories are in NBA Cup where they dominate the group stage from the first to the last game.

In quarterfinals they beat the Phoenix Suns. Already in the first quarter they take the lead and for this reason the starting five was able to rest all the fourth quarter.

The Thunder are the favourites in this tournament, and they surely want to win also to revenge the defeat in the last year’s final where they lost with a bad game played, against the Milwaukee Bucks.

San Antonio Spurs

The San Antonio Spurs are the OKC’s rival in the western conference semifinal.

The Spurs have won the group of death against Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets, Golden State Warriors and Portland Trail Blazers and then they beat the Los Angeles Lakers at the Crypto.com Arena in quarterfinals.

Victor Wembanyama is out since one month but anyway the Spurs are raising in Regular Season with a great win/loss rate and amazing performances from the other stars in the team.

The French might come back for the game against the Thunder; with him the Spurs are a menace for everyone. San Antonio is that type of team able to beat Shai and teammates.

A win can be considered as the first step to a bright future.

Orlando Magic

In the clash between the two Florida’s team, Orlando advanced against Miami.

Desmond Bane carried the Orlando Magic due to the absence of Franz Wagner.

Wagner risk a long stop after a bad injury in the Sunday game against the Knicks, their rival in the semifinals.

With him ruled out, Orlando needs the best version of Paolo Banchero that in the last period isn’t in his top condition. The fact is that now the Orlando Magic play better with him in the bench.

The Magic are not luck, but this is the opportunity to win something and change the recent history.

New York Knicks

The last semifinalist of this edition of the NBA Cup are the New York Knicks.

The win in Toronto have confirmed that the Knicks are focused on this Regular Season and they are only two steps away from a throphy that miss in New York.

Guided by Jalen Brunson, the Knicks have found the best way to play with the new head coach Mike Brown.

Now they start as the favourites against the Orlando Magic, and this is a crucial moment in the season.

This week can give confirms of strength also under the pression of a win or go home’s match.