NBA Cup takeaways: LeBron James extends triple-double streak, De’Aaron Fox drops 60, Brunson saves Knicks

The 2024 NBA Cup continued on Friday night and what a night of wild action it brought with 11 games on the slate. We had a 60-point game, a game-winning shot and block, and the third-longest winning streak to begin a season extended. 

Before we get to the main takeaways, here are all the results from Friday night’s NBA Cup action, and you can find the Cup standings here. 

Heat 124, Pacers 111
Magic 98, 76ers 86
Pistons 99, Raptors 95
Hawks 129, Wizards 117
Cavaliers 144, Bulls 126
Knicks 124, Nets 122
Lakers 120, Spurs 115
Rockets 125, Clippers 104
Pelicans 101, Nuggets 94
Thunder 99, Suns 83
Warriors 123, Grizzlies 118
Timberwolves 130, Kings 126 (OT)

Cavaliers remain perfect

The Cleveland Cavaliers improved to 14-0, the longest winning streak in franchise history at any point in a season, with Friday’s 144-126 home win over the Chicago Bulls. The Cavs, now 1-0 in the NBA Cup, are well over halfway to the best start in NBA history, which belongs to the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors who won their first 24 games.

The final score on Friday was deceiving. This was a four-point game with under three minutes to play, but the Cavaliers closed on a 21-7 flurry to make it look a lot more lopsided on paper. 

Cleveland’s 14 straight wins to open the season matches the 2002-03 Dallas Mavericks and the 1957-58 Boston Celtics for third on the all-time list. The Cavaliers can match the second-best start in history, which belongs to the 1993-94 Houston Rockets — who went on to win the championship — if they can beat the Charlotte Hornets on Sunday for a 15th consecutive win. 

Cleveland got past Chicago without the services of Evan Mobley, who was out with an illness. No big deal. All fellow big man Jarrett Allen did was put up 24 points, 10 rebounds, three assists, three steals and two blocks on 11-of-15 shooting. 

Pair that with 66 combined points from Donovan Mitchell (37) and Darius Garland (29) on 11-of-20 3-point shooting, plus 22 points and four more 3-pointers off the bench for Caris LeVert, and the Cavs, who shot 43 3-pointers and connected on them at a 48% clip, had plenty of offense to go around.

Chicago was led by Coby White (29 points and six 3-pointers) and Nikola Vucevic, who continued his splendid start to the season with 25 points on 11-of-16 shooting. 

Brunson, Bridges save Knicks

The New York Knicks are doing all they can to tread water right now. The offense has been spectacular, the defense has been anything but, and it has added up to a 6-6 record after Jalen Brunson hit a game-winner to defeat the Brooklyn Nets, 124-122, on Friday.

New York, which is tied with Orlando atop the East’s NBA Cup Group A with a 2-0 record, didn’t make it easy on itself. After leading by 21 in the closing seconds of the third quarter, the Knicks managed just four points over the first four-plus minutes of the fourth quarter. The drought allowed the Nets to come back, and the Knicks found themselves trailing by a point when they called a timeout with 11 seconds left in the game. 

That’s when Brunson did his thing, isolating against Dorian Finney-Smith in the left corner, clearing space with a swing through, and rising up for the go-ahead 3-pointer. 

The shot didn’t officially end it, however, because the Nets, now down two, still had six seconds to work with. It looked like Dennis Schroder was on his way to a game-tying layup as he raced back down the court and got behind Knicks forward Mikal Bridges with a clear path to the rim. But Bridges stayed in range and was able to block Schroder’s shot from behind to finish Brooklyn off. 

Brunson and Bridges each finished with season-high scoring totals, Brunson with 37 and Bridges with 22. Bridges, who has shot lights out from inside the arc this season but had yet to get his 3-point stroke going (30% entering Friday), made four of his seven 3-pointers, while Brunson finished 12-of-20 overall and 10 of 12 from the free throw line with 16 fourth-quarter points.

De’Aaron Fox scores 60 in loss

Fox lit up the Timberwolves for the first 60-point game of the 2024-25 NBA season, which included a 20-point barrage in the fourth quarter as the Kings, playing without DeMar DeRozan and Malik Monk, rallied from a 16-point deficit at the end of three to force overtime, where the Kings ultimately fell short against Minnesota, 130-126. 

Interesting note here on 60-point performances from our Sam Quinn: 

In all of NBA history, only 25 teams have lost a game in which one of their players scored 60 points. However, five of those games have now come in the calendar year of 2024 alone. Karl-Anthony Towns, Devin Booker, Stephen Curry and Jalen Brunson all lost such games between January and March of 2024. Brunson and Curry also did so in overtime. 

LeBron posts another triple-double

That’s a career-high four straight trip-dubs for James, who finished with 15 points, 16 rebounds and 12 assists in the Lakers’ 120-115 win over Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs. This LeBron-running-point experiment is working out pretty well. 

Imagine that. One of the best passers and overall smartest players in history at 6-foot-8 who continues to possess incredible scoring leverage is an effective offensive orchestrator. Who woulda thunk it? Perhaps the Lakers didn’t need to go get Russell Westbrook to “take the playmaking load” off James’ shoulders. Never question putting the ball in this guy’s hands. I don’t care how old he is. 

The Lakers are 1-0 in the NBA Cup, tied atop the West’s Group with Oklahoma City (OKC, which defeated the Suns 99-83 on Friday, has the edge by virtue of its plus-16 point differential to the Lakers’ plus-five).

AD’s MVP season continues

Anthony Davis hung 40 points and 12 rebounds on San Antonio. For the season, Davis is averaging 31.1 points, 10.9 rebounds and 2.1 blocks on … get this … 56/42/80 shooting splits. Yes, Davis is making 42% (well, 41.7 if you want to get technical) of his 3s. He’s 10 for his last 14 from deep over his last five games!

Davis is just an absolute beast on both ends and has to be near the top of any credible MVP discussion.

Harden ties Ray Allen for career 3s

With a step-back corner 3-pointer at the 2:21 mark of the first quarter, LA Clippers guard James Harden tied Ray Allen for second all-time with 2,973 career triples. 

Somehow Harden failed to make another one the rest of the way as the Clippers fell to the Rockets, but it won’t be long before Harden ranks above every 3-point shooter in history not named Stephen Curry. 

Warriors keep rolling

Are the Golden State Warriors seriously this good? With a win over Memphis on Friday, they moved to 10-2 on the season (2-0 in the NBA Cup, good enough for first place in the West’s Group C). They didn’t even need a big game from Stephen Curry, who finished with just 13 points on nine shots. Curry did pile up eight rebounds, five assists and four steals, and he was a game-high plus-nine. His impact, even when he’s not scoring, is always elite. 

Buddy Hield, who has been throwing flames all season, led the Warriors with 18 points on 4-of-8 3-point shooting. Golden State played 12 players at least 11 minutes and nobody over 30, and six guys scored double-digits. The depth of this team is unmatched across the league. 

76ers are in the tank

If you thought Paul George and Joel Embiid finally getting on the court was just going to magically fix the mess than has been the Philadelphia 76ers this season, think again. 

The Sixers are now 0-2 with George and Embiid in the lineup together (and just 1-5 with George), with the most recent shellacking coming at the hands of the Orlando Magic, 98-86, on Friday. The Sixers, now 2-10 overall, sit in last place of the East’s Group A with an 0-2 NBA Cup record and a minus-24 point differential so far. 

George and Embiid combined to miss 21 of their 30 shots and 11 of 14 3-pointers on Friday. Embiid was able to drum up 20 points because he made 10 free throws. Tyrese Maxey is out, and it remains a pretty sad state of affairs in Sixers land. 

NBA Cup format reminder …

With the 30 teams split up in six five-team groups, everybody will have played at least one game by the end of Friday. And with only four games in group play, there isn’t much margin for error. Here’s a summary of how the tournament works:

The NBA’s 30 teams have been split into six five-team groups: Three groups in the Eastern Conference and three groups in the Western Conference.
Teams will play the other four teams in their group in round-robin style play on Tuesdays and Fridays between Nov. 12 and Dec. 3.
Eight teams (the six group winners plus one wild-card team from each conference) will advance to the knockout round. The standings will be determined by overall record, head-to-head record and point differential if a tiebreaker is needed (there are even more tiebreakers if necessary). 
The knockout round will be a single-elimination bracket. The four East teams will be on one side of the bracket, the four West teams will be on the other. The final between the East and West winners will be held on Dec. 17 in Las Vegas.

The NBA Cup will continue on Nov. 19 with six games, including the unbeaten Cavs against the reigning champion Celtics.