BOSTON — Sam Hauser didn’t watch the chaos unfolding in New York last night that would determine the Celtics’ schedule next week. The Knicks, who took a double-digit lead quickly over the Magic, needed to lose for Boston to reach the NBA Cup.
Another unlikely scenario, one many didn’t even mention entering Tuesday, allowed the Celtics to sneak in if New York beat Orlando by 37 points or more. Late in the third quarter, the Knicks’ lead rose to 37 on the dot.
The Magic, who needed to lose by less than 37 to reach the Cup themselves, fought back to within 121-106 by the end of the night. New York, seemingly exploring a push for the No. 1 seed by playing its starters into the fourth (they needed to win by 36+ after Milwaukee beat Detroit), began sitting its regulars later in the frame. Needing help, Boston watched its Cup chances fade away. Or didn’t.
Joe Mazzulla, hot-and-cold on the Cup since its creation last year but a coach who defers to his players, pointed to the Celtics’ decisive loss to the Hawks in group play as the moment that eliminated them. They showed how much they cared that night despite saying they wanted to win the tournament.
“Don’t throw the ball to the other team 20 times,” he said. “And don’t give up 20 offensive rebounds.”
Boston returned from whatever setback missing out proved to be on Wednesday, blitzing a Pistons team that played and lost its Cup hopes, too, the previous night against the Bucks. The Celtics taking a 19-point lead midway through the first and closing 130-120. Now, rather than a date next week with the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, which a Celtics Cup berth would’ve secured, the NBA added a fourth Pistons game for Boston next week and a third road trip to Washington DC against the league-worst Wizards on Sunday Dec. 15.
Those will be the only two Celtics games over a 10-day stretch where they might’ve also traveled to Vegas.
Rest also mounted for the team on Wednesday, Boston’s third game of five over seven nights before Cup week. Jayson Tatum sat out his first game of the season after playing in Monday’s back-to-back, looking tired on his way to six turnovers. Jrue Holiday received a second straight night off, while Kristaps Porziņģis and Al Horford prepared to miss another back-to-back on either Friday or Saturday. The Cup already condensed the league’s early season schedule, and another string of games awaits after it, seven over 13 days before a five-game trip against west teams that begins with a back-to-back in Minnesota and Houston in January.
Some in the organization exhaled at the added rest that the team gained. Others expressed some disappointment.
“We’re disappointed,” Hauser said on Wednesday morning. “Obviously, we wish we could’ve done more to not have to put our faith in the other teams to give us some help to make it. It was a goal we set out before the season that we wanted to win it. Not having the chance to now kind of sucks, but we have to take it on the chin and keep on rolling.”
JB Bickerstaff and Detroit arrived in Boston overnight as the kind of team that would seemingly benefit most from a Cup experience. The Pistons won their ninth game on Friday, something it took them until Feb. 27 to do last year, and sit 0.5 games out of the play-in tournament following early season improvement. At home against Milwaukee on Tuesday, he watched, agonizing over several miscues as the Cup berth slipped away from them.
One year earlier, coaching a veteran Cavaliers group that narrowly missed the tournament at 3-1, Bickerstaff stood among its skeptics. Mazzulla did too, eventually embracing the way it changed the unwritten rules of the game. Boston played out its final group game against Chicago while running up the score. It led to an intense environment, a fiery mid-court moment between Billy Donovan and Mazzulla as the Celtics intentionally fouled Andre Drummond. Hauser sunk a last-second three to do the same in Chicago on Friday, helping Boston’s scoring differential, but not enough to surpass the Magic before the Celtics could only watch on Tuesday. Or not.
“I think it’s a great thing,” Bickerstaff said. “I do think there’s a huge incentive in it … if you give guys that are in the NBA an opportunity to compete for something, whether it’s cards, whether it’s games, whatever it might be, they’re gonna find a way to go out and compete and get after it. So I think it’s added a lot to our league. For us, as we grow, it gave us an opportunity to play and experience truly meaningful basketball that our young guys haven’t had an opportunity play. A game with so much on the line, stakes were high for our guys … it’s a great opportunity for us to learn those things and see what it actually feels like.”
Rick Carlisle said the Pacers benefited similarly from their run to the cup’s championship last fall before their first playoff run with their core culminated in a competitive east finals berth. Eight teams that project to factor into this postseason advanced past the group stage, contending mainstays like the Warriors, Bucks and Mavs alongside risers like the Magic, Rockets and Hawks. The Knicks and Thunder could become future Celtics playoff opponents. They won’t be cup opponents now.
Whether it benefits a team like Boston, which already won the NBA championship last year, is another story. Rising from group play on the final day and recovering from a challenging first round loss to Indiana might’ve helped them a year ago. The Celtics closed the regular season 42-9 after losing in the cup.
Money is currently the motive for players and staff. For some fans, the experience still feels bizarre. Mazzulla, speaking about the Cup’s format last month, wanted to see the tournament separated from the regular season and have multiple throughout the year like in European soccer. Teams compete toward national tournaments and the Champions League that crosses national lines away from their season play. The NBA mixed its tournament into the regular season, counting four group games and two additional tournament or loser’s bracket contests toward the 82-game season. Only the two teams that play the title have an 83rd that doesn’t count. The Celtics won’t be part of it.
Ideas to make it matter more have ranged from that championship win counting as a tiebreaker in the final standings, the tournament’s scoring margin becoming a differentiator there or the champion even having a guaranteed spot in the NBA Playoffs. The league also reportedly assessed including international teams when it formulated the idea during the last round of CBA talks.
“The NBA Cup just gives you an opportunity to go after something, to try and win something,” Mazzulla said on Wednesday. “If you win it, you look at the process of what went into winning it, and if you don’t, you look at the process of what went into losing it and then you’re able to use it as perspective for the rest of the season.”
