When Houston lost its Emirates NBA Cup 2025 opener by double digits in San Antonio, its odds of advancing to December’s eight-team knockout rounds appeared low.
But one week later, after Friday’s 24-point blowout of Portland (led by Kevin Durant, who scored 30 points and was +37 in his minutes), the Rockets are now in a much better spot.
Between Houston’s home win over the Trail Blazers and Golden State’s late-night victory at San Antonio, all five teams in Western Conference Group C are now 1-1 at the midway point of group play. Many observers around the NBA care calling that the “group of death,” referring to the collective difficulty of those teams.
As things stand, four of those five squads have winning records in the 2025-26 regular season, and the fifth (Portland) is at .500.
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In Cup play, with all teams having split against each other, the second tiebreaker criteria (after head-to-head) is point differential. From that standpoint, the margin the Rockets were able to put up Friday was very helpful. Here’s how the five teams currently stack up:
1.) Denver: 1-1, +23
2.) Rockets: 1-1, +13
3.) San Antonio: 1-1, +10
4.) Portland: 1-1, -22
5.) Golden State: 1-1, -24
Houston’s final two NBA Cup group games are next Friday, Nov. 21, at home versus Denver, and then the following Wednesday, Nov. 26, at Golden State.
Neither game will be easy to win, but if the Rockets get to 3-1, they would have the head-to-head tiebreaker advantage over every team in the group outside of the Spurs.
In that scenario, the only way the Rockets could potentially not win the group is if the Spurs swept their road games at Portland (Nov. 26) and Denver (Nov. 28) over Thanksgiving week. The Spurs would likely be underdogs against the Nuggets, assuming Nikola Jokic is healthy and available to play.
And even if San Antonio did win both of those games, the Rockets could still have a realistic chance of securing the fourth and final Western Conference knockout-round slot via the wild card, which is determined by point differential. That’s where Friday’s blowout margin versus the Trail Blazers could pay even more dividends down the line. In each conference, the wild-card spot goes to a second-place finisher with the best point differential.
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Those knockout round games — or add-on regular-season contests, in scenarios where the Rockets are eliminated early from NBA Cup contention — will be added to the schedule for the week of Dec. 9-16. Opponents, dates, times, and locations will be announced at the end of November, once all group-stage games are concluded.
Granted, the biggest priority for the Rockets remains the 2025-26 regular season and building up for an eventual run in the 2026 NBA playoffs. At the moment, the Rockets are 8-3 and have won eight of their last nine, overall. That’s the primary focus.
That hot stretch has lifted Houston to the No. 3 spot in the West standings, trailing only Oklahoma City (12-1) and Denver (9-2), and the Rockets will have a chance to gain a game on the Nuggets during next Friday’s showdown at Toyota Center.
Yet, it’s becoming clear that Houston cares about the NBA Cup, as well. In Friday’s game versus the Trail Blazers, All-Star center Alperen Sengun checked back into the game with just over five minutes left and the Rockets ahead by 26 points.
Sure, he might have wanted a triple-double. But from the perspective of head coach Ime Udoka, the most plausible explanation seems to be that he wanted to sustain that lofty margin, which the Rockets were largely able to do.
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So, with two group-stage games left to play, the Rockets have suddenly found themselves in a solid position, from an NBA Cup perspective. They don’t fully control their own destiny, but if they are able to win against the Nuggets and Warriors, it now appears more likely than not that Houston would advance to the knockout rounds for a second consecutive year.