On any other night, a sad sack tilt between the injury-riddled 2-9 Toronto Raptors and the disaster show 2-8 Milwaukee Bucks might be the type of game you’d relegate to PVR skim status.
But not on an NBA Cup night, baby!
On the doorstep of the second edition of the league’s soccer-style in-season sidebar, it’s already pretty obvious The Cup has already had its desired effect. The beautifully garish courts, the added stakes hitting just as the early season honeymoon period wanes, mid-November point differential math — it’s all, as they call it, The Good Stuff.
Nothing on TV is better than an NBA game where both teams play hard, my man, and that the league has found a way to extract a higher give-a-damn quotient out of one of the sleepiest portions of the schedule is, with no hint of irony or sarcasm, a triumph. Regular season basketball should matter more; we spend half our calendar years watching it. Call it a gimmick, or just a smart adaptation of a format that’s worked in the world’s most popular sport for a century-plus, but the tourney — despite some detractors in the executive class who think trying hard in games is bad actually — has undeniably juiced up previously under-appreciated random November Tuesdays and Fridays. The only issue is that there aren’t more Cup nights, though maybe one day, once the GMs procure some helmets.
For the Raptors, The Cup may be their first and last time to truly shine on the national stage this season. They’re not good, and though their play to date doesn’t totally reflect their bottom-of-the-league record, it’s gonna take something pretty freaking special from Scottie Barnes and company once (if) the team reaches full health to secure some playoff dates in April (though as I wrote last week, the rotten state of the East has cracked that door open a touch).
Of course, as with any potted-and-drawn tournament format, so much of any prospective underdog’s hopes hinge on the group that team gets placed in. And boy oh boy, have the Raptors earned a plum draw. Tonight it’s the Bucks — now with Damian Lillard sidelined. This Friday they take on the hardly-frightening Pistons back at home, before closing out the group stage with games against the Heat, who may or may not be the type of ‘7-game team’ that truly thrives in this environment, and the Pacers, who feel eminently upsettable at all times with their hair-on-fire play style and injury troubles of their own.
These Raptors, under-talented yet over-scrappy, with nothing to save their powder for later in the year, are who the NBA Cup is built for. Over 82 games, sure, the Raptors finish below all but maybe one Group B’s contestants. But in the small-sample, high-leverage world of one-off tournament hoops, it’s OK believe in the unbelievable.
—
Today on the podcast, James Herbert of CBS Sports joins the show to talk about the Raptors’ pre-Cup form, how they stack up in a wide open East Group B, and our predictions for how the tournament ultimately shakes out.
