NBA Scores: Warriors, Celtics, 76ers Win Cup Openers
Meta description: NBA scores from the Emirates NBA Cup opener: Warriors rally past Lakers, Celtics beat Bulls, 76ers top Knicks and Heat rout Pacers on Oct. 30.
The first night of NBA scores in the 2026 Emirates NBA Cup delivered the kind of swing that makes an in-season tournament worth staging. On Friday, October 30, 2026, four group-play openers produced four very different stories: a 25-point lead disappearing in San Francisco, a large home lead narrowing in Boston, a close finish in Philadelphia against the defending champions, and a high-scoring rout in Miami. None of the four results settles a group, because group play has only just begun, but each one changes the early arithmetic, and in a competition where point difference can decide who advances, even the margin of a win on the opening night matters.
The Cup is now in its fourth year as the league’s in-season tournament. Teams play designated group games that also count toward the regular-season standings, with the group winners and the best runners-up moving on to a knockout stage. The 2026 group schedule runs on Fridays from October 30 through November 27, with additional Cup nights during Thanksgiving week on November 24 and 25. That structure gives an ordinary Friday in late October a second layer of meaning. A team is not only trying to improve its record. It is trying to bank a group win, protect its point difference, and avoid starting a short group campaign from behind. Friday’s schedule made that point in four cities at once: San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia and Miami, each hosting a group opener with its own early-season storyline.
NBA News: Warriors Erase 25 Points to Beat the Lakers
No comeback on the night matched what happened at Chase Center in San Francisco, where the Golden State Warriors hosted the Los Angeles Lakers in a rematch of their opening-night meeting. The Lakers began in complete control, with Luka Doncic scoring freely in the opening quarter and the visitors building a lead that reached 25 points. Golden State trailed by 23 points at the end of the first quarter, 38-15, and the deficit grew to 25 early in the second quarter. For a home crowd that had seen its team lose the opening-night meeting between these clubs, the start must have felt painfully familiar.
What followed was a complete reversal, and it began on the bench. De’Anthony Melton scored seven consecutive points early in the second quarter, cutting the lead to 18 and giving the Warriors a pulse. From there, the home side kept chipping away, defending with more urgency and moving the ball into better shots. By halftime, a game that had looked like a blowout was level at 53-53. Golden State had won the second quarter 38-15, exactly reversing the score of the first quarter.
The second half belonged to the Warriors. Stephen Curry, relatively quiet while the Lakers built their lead, took control after the break and finished with 31 points, six assists and four rebounds. Brandin Podziemski added 21 points and six assists, while Melton finished with 16 points and five rebounds and remained central to the turnaround that had started in the second quarter. In that second quarter alone, Melton and Curry combined for 21 points, more than the Lakers managed as a team in the period.
The final score was 112-95 to Golden State, a 17-point winning margin after a 25-point deficit, a swing of 42 points from the low point to the final buzzer. Depth was the decisive factor. Golden State’s reserves outscored the Lakers’ bench by 50 points to seven, and whenever Doncic sat, the Lakers struggled to generate offence, while the Warriors kept finding contributors. Golden State outscored Los Angeles 59-42 after halftime, and an 18-0 run in the second half effectively put the game out of reach.
Doncic produced the individual scoring performance of the night, finishing with 37 points, seven rebounds, five assists and two blocked shots, including 21 points in the first quarter alone. His early burst, and a 17-5 start for the Lakers, suggested a comfortable road win. Instead, the game became a reminder of how quickly a Cup night can turn, and how much a bench matters when a star needs a rest. The Lakers now face a difficult path in their group unless they win their remaining Cup games convincingly, because a loss of this size also damages the point difference that could matter later. Their next assignment, away from the Cup, is a home game against Toronto on Sunday night, followed by Miami on Monday as part of a back-to-back set.
NBA Standings: Celtics Control Their Cup Opener in Boston
Boston’s night was less dramatic than San Francisco’s, but it was just as instructive about how a strong team manages a Cup game. The Celtics hosted the Chicago Bulls at TD Garden in the first group game for both teams, and they took control early. Boston led by 29 points at halftime, 78-49, after a first half in which the home side came close to setting a franchise record for points in a half. The Bulls did not fold entirely, and the second half was more competitive, but the outcome was never seriously in doubt after the opening two quarters.
Jayson Tatum led the Celtics’ starters with 26 points, seven rebounds and seven assists in 34 minutes, a balanced line that reflected how comfortably Boston shared the scoring. The standout contribution, however, came from the bench. Payton Pritchard scored 30 points in almost 35 minutes as a substitute, the highest total of any player in the game, and he reached the free-throw line nine times, a career-high number of attempts from the stripe for him. That combination, a starter filling the stat sheet and a reserve providing a scoring burst, is exactly the formula Boston has relied on during its strong start to the season.
The final score was 125-111, a margin that flatters Chicago slightly, given how one-sided the first half had been, but also reflects a better second half from the visitors. For the Celtics, the result moves them to 1-0 in group play and 4-1 overall to start the 2026-27 campaign. The Bulls leave Boston still looking for their first Cup win, in a group that also includes Atlanta, Charlotte and Washington. Boston’s next game is on the road against Orlando on Sunday afternoon, while its next Cup assignment is a trip to Charlotte on Friday, November 6. The early lesson for Boston is encouraging: even when the intensity dipped after halftime, the lead built in the first half was large enough to absorb it, and the bench again proved it can change a game. Chicago, meanwhile, will need to defend better in the opening quarters of its next Cup game, because a huge halftime deficit followed by a partial recovery will not be enough against the better teams in its group.
Who Won the Game Last Night? 76ers Edge the Defending Champions
The closest game of the night came in Philadelphia, where the 76ers beat the New York Knicks 98-93 in their Cup opener. The result matters for two reasons. First, New York arrived as the defending Cup and league champions, having become the first team to win the Cup and the championship in the same season. Second, Philadelphia’s win moved the 76ers to 5-1 overall and 1-0 in Cup play, continuing a start to the season built on close-game composure rather than blowouts.
Tyrese Maxey led Philadelphia with 27 points, and the home side’s ball movement was a feature throughout, with 26 assists on 37 made baskets. Anfernee Simons added 21 points off the bench, providing the scoring punch that kept Philadelphia in front during stretches when the starters rested. The decisive moments came late in the fourth quarter. VJ Edgecombe hit a late three-pointer to put Philadelphia ahead, and a putback in the closing seconds sealed a win that had been in doubt until the final possessions. LeBron James, playing for Philadelphia, finished with 20 points, nine rebounds and eight assists, and his late contribution underlined how many different players the 76ers can turn to when a game tightens.
New York had chances. Jalen Brunson briefly gave the Knicks the lead in the fourth quarter, and Karl-Anthony Towns, upgraded to start before tip-off, gave the visitors a presence inside. But Philadelphia held New York to 41 percent shooting from the field and 32 percent from three-point range, and the home side’s defence in the final minutes proved decisive. The Knicks’ slow start to the season, relative to their championship standard, remains a talking point, and a Cup defeat in a group as strong as theirs adds to the pressure. Philadelphia, by contrast, can point to another win secured by bench scoring and late-game defence, two qualities that tend to travel well in a tournament format.
The group context makes the result even more significant. Philadelphia and New York are in Eastern Conference Group B, alongside Cleveland, Miami and Indiana, a group described as the strongest in the tournament. In such a group, a head-to-head win is doubly valuable, because the first tiebreaker in group play is the head-to-head result, followed by point difference. Philadelphia now holds the head-to-head edge over New York, and the Knicks will need to win their remaining group games, and probably win them well, to stay in contention for the knockout stage.
LeBron James News and the Miami Rout of Indiana
If Philadelphia’s win was about composure, Miami’s was about firepower. The Heat beat the Indiana Pacers 145-125 at the Kaseya Center in Miami, in a game that was competitive early before the home side’s experience and size took over. Giannis Antetokounmpo recorded his second triple-double of the season, finishing with 31 points, 17 rebounds and 10 assists, and he was supported by a cast that shared the scoring in a way that left Indiana with no single threat to stop.
Bam Adebayo added 27 points and nine rebounds, Klay Thompson scored 25 points including seven three-pointers, Pelle Larsson scored 18 points on perfect five-for-five shooting, and Davion Mitchell contributed 15 points and 11 assists. Andrew Wiggins added 12 points, and the frontcourt dominance showed in the numbers: Miami won the points in the paint by 64 to 50 and the rebounding battle by 47 to 37. Indiana started brightly, but a short-handed roster, playing with only 11 players including eight on standard contracts because of injuries, could not sustain that start against a Miami team with so many scoring options.
The result moves Miami to 2-4 overall and 1-0 in group play, while Indiana falls to 2-4 overall and 0-1 in the group. For Miami, the win is a reminder that a slow start to the regular season does not necessarily mean a team is out of form. When Antetokounmpo and Adebayo combine for that level of production, and Thompson shoots that efficiently from deep, Miami can score with any team in the league. For Indiana, the concern is depth as much as result. Injuries have already stretched the roster, and a Cup group that includes Philadelphia, New York, Cleveland and Miami leaves very little room for a depleted team to recover from an opening defeat. The Miami result also completes the picture of Group B after one night: Philadelphia and Miami both won their openers, New York and Indiana both lost theirs, and Cleveland, the fifth team in the group, had yet to play its first Cup game.
What Happens Next in the NBA Cup
The next steps are clear, and they are what make the Cup different from a normal week of regular-season games. Every team now knows its group position, its head-to-head situation, and its point difference after one game. Coaches will be thinking not only about winning the next Cup game, but about winning it by enough to protect a tiebreaker. Players will be thinking about rest and rotation, because Cup games sit inside an already demanding regular-season schedule, with back-to-back sets and travel in between. Fans, meanwhile, get a second standings table to follow, one that will change every Friday night for the next month.
For the four winners on Friday, the immediate challenge is to avoid complacency. Golden State’s comeback was spectacular, but it also exposed how vulnerable the Warriors can look when an opponent starts hot. Boston’s first half was superb, but the second half showed how quickly a large lead can shrink when intensity drops. Philadelphia’s close win was encouraging, but it also showed how dependent the 76ers can be on late scoring from their bench. Miami’s rout was comprehensive, but it came against a short-handed opponent, and the sterner tests in Group B are still to come.
For the four losers, the challenge is different. The Lakers need to find bench production and a way to protect a lead when Doncic rests. Chicago needs to start Cup games with the defensive intensity it showed in the second half in Boston. New York needs to turn close losses into wins, starting with better shooting efficiency in the fourth quarter. Indiana needs, above all, to get players back, because no tactical adjustment can fully compensate for a roster stretched as thin as theirs was on Friday night. What is certain is that the Cup has started with a night that rewarded the teams that finished strongest. If the rest of group play follows the same pattern, the road to the knockout stage will be decided not by who starts best, but by who can sustain their level for four quarters, protect a lead, erase a deficit, and win the small moments that, in a short group campaign, can end up deciding everything.
Source: NBA.com