The Phoenix Suns are right in the thick of it for the 2025 Emirates Cup. This is the NBA’s third-ever in-season competition, which will crown a champion on December 16th in Las Vegas.
I don’t know about
you, but I am enjoying the regular season enough as is, but the Cup games add another fun element. Do they really mean anything in the grand scheme of things? For us, no.
For the players, they have a nice check that says otherwise. A $500,000+ grand prize for each player is a nice sweetener and extra boost of motivation, especially for the younger guys. Let’s get you up to speed on the rest of the details before this next phase kicks off.
NBA Cup Refresher
The Emirates NBA Cup will consist of two stages: Group Play and the Knockout Rounds. As you can probably assume, they are currently in the group play.
Group play began on October 31st and continues through Friday, November 28th. Each team will play four designated Group Play games on “Cup Nights” – one game against each opponent in its group, with two games at home and two on the road.
Phoenix is already halfway through its cup games, with the final two coming on the road this week. They will need to focus their attention entirely on beating Sacramento, and not look ahead to OKC too much. If they can enter that contest 3-0 with a solid point differential, they give themselves a chance for at least a Wild Card spot.
- Game 1: vs. Utah (Win — 118-96)
- Game 2: vs. Minnesota (Win — 114-113)
- Game 3: @ Sacramento — Wednesday, Nov. 26
- Game 4: @ Oklahoma City — Friday, Nov. 28
Eight teams move on to the Knockout Rounds: the winner of each of the six groups, plus two wild cards — the top second-place team from each conference based on Group Play records.
The teams that reach the NBA Cup’s finale will actually play 83 games, though the championship game won’t count toward the standings or any statistical markers.
What is the tiebreaker, you ask?
In the event two or more teams are tied within a group, the tie among the teams will be broken according to the following tiebreakers (in sequential order):
• Head-to-head record in Group Play;
• Point differential in Group Play; ^^
• Total points scored in Group Play; ^^
• Record from the 2024-25 NBA regular season;
• Random drawing (in the unlikely scenario that two or more teams are still tied following the previous tiebreakers).
The Suns haven’t had issues getting “up” for games this season, but I will say, these games offer a chance for them to play just a little bit harder than usual.
This week starts off with the Houston game, of course, but after that, Phoenix has itself a pair of games to look forward to against Sacramento and Oklahoma City.
Can we see some “Bubble Suns” type magic again? Sign me up for a fun run, and the wins that come with it in the process.
