Last night, the New York Knicks and Orlando Magic punched their tickets to Las Vegas for the semifinals of the Emirates NBA Cup, which will be played on Saturday. Tonight, attention turns to the Western Conference, where the Phoenix Suns, Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs, and Los Angeles Lakers will vie for the right to play in the semifinals.
As the higher-seeded group winner, Los Angeles will host San Antonio in the nightcap, which is set to begin at 10 p.m. ET. The Spurs will play their 12th consecutive game without Victor Wembanyama as the All-Star center continues to work his way back from a calf strain.
The Lakers are 7.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook (-278 on the Moneyline), with the point total set to 240.5. San Antonio is +225 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ve detailed my favorite three-leg same game parlay from the NBA Cup quarterfinal.
Best Same Game Parlay for Spurs at Lakers
San Antonio Spurs +7.5
Even without Wembanyama, the Spurs are competitive in nearly every game they play. Defensively, they haven’t been nearly the same, slipping from the equivalent of the league’s second-best defense with the Defensive Player of the Year candidate manning the middle to the equivalent of its fourth-worst. They’ve made up for it somewhat by being 3.6 points per 100 possessions better offensively, which might not be a total fluke, given how nascent the 21-year-old’s offensive development is. All in all, in the 11 games that it has played without Wembanyama, San Antonio is 8-3 and has posted a plus-2.1 net rating, merely one game and 3.9 points per 100 possessions worse than Los Angeles has been across that same span.
The Lakers have been better as of late, but they’ve rarely won convincingly. Of their 17 wins, nine have been decided by 10 or fewer points, including a two-point triumph over the Spurs on November 5. Los Angeles sits second in the West because it’s 8-0 when a game has gotten within five points with five or fewer minutes to play, with easily the league’s best clutch defense, but San Antonio has been extremely strong in crunch time as well, with a 5-0 record and a plus-31.9 net rating in such situations since Wembanyama’s injury.
Luka Dončić 52+ Points + Rebounds + Assists
Dončić had 52+ P/R/A six times in a seven-game span, traveled back to his native Slovenia to be with his fiancée as she gave birth to the couple’s second daughter…then returned to the United States and did it again. Even for a player best known for his ability to stuff the stat sheet, Dončić’s production this season has been unbelievable: 36.5 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 8.9 assists per game across his last eight games on an effective field goal percentage (55.7%) better than his career average. As if his game wasn’t already complete enough, he’s shooting 90.7% in the restricted area, easily the highest of any player attempting two or more shots per game in that zone.
As previously mentioned, the Spurs didn’t get better defensively after losing a generational rim protector. In their 11 games without Wembanyama, they’ve allowed the ninth-most points, 12th-most rebounds, and fifth-most assists. They’ve also allowed the fifth-most attempts in the restricted area, so Dončić should have even less trouble getting downhill than he usually does. He didn’t shoot well when guarded by Stephon Castle last season or in the teams’ earlier game, but he did bait Castle into three shooting fouls in just 30.1 partial possessions last season, which should get him easy points and get one of San Antonio’s best defenders out of the game.
De’Aaron Fox 3+ Three-Pointers Made
After many of the narratives surrounding the Spurs early in the season revolved around San Antonio’s other young guards, Castle and Dylan Harper, Fox has demonstrated exactly why the team gave up three first-round picks at the 2025 trade deadline to acquire him. In the last 11 games, Fox has kept the team afloat by averaging 25.6 points per game, and despite not being known as a three-point shooter, he’s made three or more triples five times with Wembanyama sidelined and canned his long-distance tries at a 39.4% rate. Playing with a pair of slashing guards in Castle and Harper has helped open up the floor to generate easier looks.
Defensively, the Lakers have been gettable from beyond the arc. This season, opponents have attempted the ninth-most three-pointers against them and converted at the sixth-highest rate, and while there’s an element of luck to that — Los Angeles has conceded the second-highest accuracy on wide-open threes — the Lakers have still given up an above-average number of tries. Los Angeles also allows among the most shot attempts from the corners, where Fox has made more than half of his shots this season (albeit in a tiny sample size).
