Cup night one: the champions lost, the Rockets lost, and the Warriors came back

The champions lost their opener again

The first night of 2026 NBA Cup play saw the defending champions fall to Philadelphia, 98-93, the same result as the season opener between the teams nine days earlier.

The Sixers won it without Jaylen Brown, who was out with patellar tendinopathy. Tyrese Maxey led Philadelphia with 27 points on 10-of-19 shooting, LeBron James finished with 20 points, nine rebounds and eight assists, and Anfernee Simons added 21 points on 11 shots off the bench.

New York nearly completed a double-digit fourth-quarter comeback and took the lead at one point. Philadelphia answered with five straight points, capped by a 3-pointer from VJ Edgecombe.

The loss dropped the Knicks to 2-4 overall and 0-1 in Cup play. Their group also includes Cleveland, Miami and Indiana.

Philadelphia's half-court execution was the difference in the last two minutes, and it is becoming the thing this team can rely on when the game gets small.

The 40-15 start that turned into a 17-point loss

Los Angeles began its game against Golden State on a 40-15 run, with Luka Doncic clearly trying to make an example of Warriors rookie Yaxel Lendeborg after their previous run-in.

That was the high point. The Warriors outscored the Lakers by 42 the rest of the way and won 112-95.

Doncic poured in 21 points in the opening quarter, the tenth time he has scored at least 20 in a quarter since joining the Lakers, tied with Kobe Bryant for the most by any Laker since 2000. He then went 5-for-15 the rest of the night.

Curry finished with 31 points on 11-of-23 shooting, and Golden State's reserves outscored Los Angeles' second unit 47-7.

The bench number is the part the Lakers will study. A second unit that loses that badly in a game that ends that close is not a rotation problem; it is a roster problem.

Houston's first loss

Houston came into the night unbeaten and left it 5-1. Dallas won the closest finish of the evening, with Cooper Flagg delivering the dagger after the Mavericks trailed for much of the second half.

Kyrie Irving led Dallas in scoring with 35 points on 12-of-19 shooting. Flagg's game-sealing shot was part of a night that included nine rebounds and six assists.

The Rockets had their chances from the free throw line and did not take them, and the loss leaves Memphis as the league's only unbeaten team.

For Dallas, it was the kind of win a team can point to later: not a blowout, not a lucky bounce, a close game decided by a rookie in the last minute.

Flagg's night also included the kind of defensive possessions that do not show up in a scoring line, which is why Dallas trusted him with the last shot.

Denver 127-120, and the ejection

Phoenix's night turned on a flagrant 2. Dillon Brooks was ejected for a kick to Jamal Murray's groin in the third quarter, and the Nuggets went on to win 127-120 behind a 39-point game from Murray.

Brooks exited with 22 points on 9-of-12 shooting, which is why the ejection mattered: he was the Suns' most efficient scorer on the night.

Denver's win was built on Murray's scoring and on the space the ejection created in Phoenix's rotation. The Nuggets are now 3-2.

It was the kind of game where the box score and the story diverge: Brooks' numbers look good, and the result says otherwise.

The league will look at the contact again, which is normal for a flagrant 2. The game result is already in the books, and it belongs to Denver.

Washington's defense and a rookie debut

The Wizards blew out Charlotte 95-79, holding the Hornets to 29.7 percent shooting from the floor. It was the first time Washington has held an opponent below 80 points since March 9, 2015.

AJ Dybantsa, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 draft, had 17 points on 11 shots and seven rebounds in his home debut, and he looked comfortable doing it.

Anthony Davis filled the paint for Washington, and the Hornets never found a second offensive idea after their first-quarter shooting cooled.

Washington is now 3-3, with a group win that also carries a useful point differential.

Washington's point differential is the quiet asset from this game: a double-digit win in a four-game group is worth more than the same win in a random October game.

What the group table looks like

The Knicks are 0-1 in a group with Cleveland, Miami and Indiana, which is the wrong start for a team that came into the season with expectations.

Miami and Indiana played each other on the same night, which means one of those three teams already has a loss in a four-game group.

Philadelphia's win is the most valuable result of the night, because it came against the defending champions and because the margin was close enough to survive a tiebreaker.

None of this decides a group in October. It does mean the teams that lost on Friday will spend November doing arithmetic.

The arithmetic will get louder in November, when the teams that lost on Friday have to make up ground in a group that only advances one.

Philadelphia will take the clean sheet; New York, Miami and Indiana already have something to chase.