The Pacers and Lakers advanced to the final of the NBA’s inaugural in-season tournament on Thursday by defeating the Bucks and Pelicans in their respective semifinal matchups.
The championship game between the two undefeated teams (both are 6-0 in the tournament) will be held at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday at 7:30 pm CT. The final will be the lone game of the in-season tournament that does not count towards the regular season schedule.
Indiana’s win over Milwaukee was a back-and-forth affair that came down to the final minutes, with guard Tyrese Haliburton delivering another stellar performance (27 points, 15 assists, seven rebounds, zero turnovers), including clutch baskets to seal the victory. Center Myles Turner also had a strong outing, recording 26 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks.
However, the other semifinal wasn’t competitive, as Los Angeles demolished New Orleans behind a brilliant showing from LeBron James, who finished with 30 points (on 9-of-12 shooting), eight assists, five rebounds and zero turnovers in just 23 minutes. The Lakers wound up winning by 44 points.
Pelicans head coach Willie Green was understandably disappointed in his team’s effort, tweets Will Guillory of The Athletic.
“Tonight was a total letdown… A lack of competitive spirit,” Green said. “Tonight, we took a step in the wrong direction.”
Players on standard contracts with the Pacers and Lakers have now secured bonuses worth at least $200K (two-way players will earn half that amount). The champs will earn $500K apiece.
The Bucks and Pelicans, meanwhile, earned bonuses of $100K per player for reaching the semifinals, but have been eliminated from contention for the first NBA Cup.
1 game away from more than a few people starting to claim Lebron is just 1 title short of Jordan
We’re also one game away from if the Pacers win the NBA cup it somehow detracts LeBron’s legacy which is stupid, LeBron, Jabbar, Russell, Jordan, Magic and many others were all great and have a legitimate claim to being the greatest of all time.
No. They don’t. Russell played in a watered down league and has no business in the conversation. Anyone who’s 7ft for that matter has no business in the conversation, as their height is the only reason they dominated. Magic was a good point guard, but is never brought up in GOAT conversations. And Lebron is a pathetic, league manufactured star who has had games and series manipulated to his advantage due to the league being desperate following MJ retirement. MJ is the GOAT and it’s not close.
To call Lebron James pathetic immediately eliminates any possibility that your comment was anything more than just an ignorant, biased attack at a player who has performed at an elite level for an unprecedented amount of time. Who’s the GOAT? Who can really say? It’s all conjecture, opinion and speculation, a lot of it biased (like yourself) and uninformed. But whoever is the GOAT, if you were sitting in a roundtable in a room with a group of knowledgeable, unbiased NBA experts , if you stated your comment to the group like you have here, you would instantly be slapped, ridiculed, and tossed out of the room with a good, solid kick in your dumb ass for calling James pathetic. LOSER! BTW, your conspiracy that the League manipulated games and publicity in LeBron’s favor is another indication of your very obvious, biased ignorance and your psychotic thought process. Go pick up some cans along the highway, menace.
Lakers looked good yesterday. Tough defense. Got the job done.
tourny did good. it kept heavy interest in the season as we head into Christmas games then all star break
If the Pacers win is anyone really going to think they can win the actual trophy. The Tournament is okay but I wasn’t more interested in it. I don’t think it adds much to any resumes. The groups are not even and are 1 games.
The tournament was stupid. Random games were tournament games? The groupings made no sense, and clearly the league wanted wah wah lebron in the final. Almost as pathetic as the bubblechip… almost.
Why do you even comment? Let people have fun and enjoy themselves. Negativity is bad for our health. Smile dude.
Someone clearly hates the Lakers, hates the modern NBA as a whole, and yet for some reason watches anyway.
Chill, dude. Just chill. Throwing a tantrum like this makes you look like a child.
I’m not even a Lakers fan, but I hate when people try to asterisk that title with terms like “bubblechip.” Please, explain to me which teams didn’t compete under the same circumstances that season? If your favorite team had won, would it also have been a “bubblechip”?
Won’t say I like or dislike the tournament concept, but it did allow me the chance to see a couple Bucks games I wouldn’t have otherwise (we don’t get Bally, if that’s even a thing here still) on the big networks.
I will say the floors are hideous, and apparently they had to turn the lights off above the stands for the Bucks/Pacers game because they were half empty (?). Didn’t watch the second game so I don’t know if it was the same thing.
I expected a drop-off in scoring/shooting from the previous game, but not the occasional nonexistent defense. The refusal to make adjustments had me thinking coach Bud was back on the sideline.
LBJ has earned the accolades that have followed him in his long NBA career.
But if the referees in the IST championship game intend to enforce traveling (as they mistakenly did with the Pacers’ TJ McConnell late in their semifinal game), LBJ is going to cough up a more than a few turnovers.
Plus, the uptempo pace at which the Pacers are playing this season is going to make it very tough for the Lakers to sustain any intensity on defense. LBJ is 38, AD is 30 and a few of their other players are north of 27, so this game will be a stern ready of their conditioning.