Rockets emerging as this year's NBA Cup Cinderella with group-clinching win over Timberwolves

The Los Angeles Lakers were technically the champions of the NBA's first ever In-Season Tournament, but the event's biggest winner was the young Indiana Pacers. A reigning lottery team filled with players that lacked big-game experience, the Pacers took the league by storm by racing all the way to Vegas and a championship game defeat against those Lakers. They may not have taken home the event's trophy, but the run validated a team that otherwise might have been dismissed. The lessons learned during those high-leverage games helped the Pacers reach the Eastern Conference Finals in the spring.

Runs like that are what this tournament was built for. Older, star-laden rosters have a distinct advantage over a seven-game grind. But in a format in which a single loss can knock you out? There's much more room for Cinderellas, and with group play nearing its conclusion in the 2024 NBA Cup, this year's Cinderella has emerged in the form of the Houston Rockets, who clinched the West's Group A with a 117-111 overtime victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday night. 

The Rockets, like last year's Pacers, are an ascending young team coming off of a lottery season. The similarities end there. Whereas the Pacers endeared themselves to fans with an up-tempo style and historic offense, the Rockets make enemies out of everyone with their physicality, defense and trash-talking. They're neck-and-neck with the vaunted Oklahoma City Thunder for the No. 1 defensive ranking in the sport, and on Tuesday, they not only took their biggest step towards Vegas, but benefitted from the tournament in much the same way the Pacers did a year ago.

Only three of their nine rotation players, Fred VanVleet, Dillon Brooks and lightly-used backup center Jock Landale, have ever played in a playoff game. Everyone else is 23 or younger and has spent their career on a Rockets team that wasn't winning anything before this season. Big games are still a somewhat foreign concept to them.

They aren't to the Timberwolves, who reached the Western Conference Finals a year ago and are filled with proven veterans. They didn't flinch at falling behind 82-64 in the third quarter, but the Rockets didn't quite know how to respond when the Timberwolves started punching back. The Rockets started turning the ball over. Their shot selection faltered, and suddenly promising possessions were wasted on early-clock jumpers. An extended 38-15 run from Minnesota put the Timberwolves ahead by five with three minutes left in the fourth quarter.

Houston didn't allow another point in regulation. The offense is still a work in progress -- especially with last year's breakout player Alperen Sengun still struggling with his efficiency -- but it did just enough to get them across the goal line. A 3 from VanVleet and a steal-and-layup from Amen Thompson sent the game to overtime. Houston took care of business from there.

It was the rare sort of win in which the journey was as important as the destination. Had Houston cruised, it never would have been able to measure itself in high-stress moments against a team of Minnesota's caliber this early in the season. 

Thompson, who had made 13 3-pointers in his career entering Tuesday, hit a game-tying triple in overtime. Jabari Smith, struggling to 32.5% from deep so far this season, got a major confidence boost from his three 3-pointers he made in this one. Making shots in a game like that can have a carry over effect. Meanwhile, Sengun got a glimpse of playoff-level defensive intensity from Rudy Gobert, who bullied him into a 9-of-23 shooting performance. That's a lesson for the future.

Those lessons served the Pacers well in their unexpected playoff run last season. The Rockets have similar ambitions this year, and after clinching West Group A on Tuesday, they're now a quarterfinal victory away from Vegas and the same exposure that made the Pacers the darlings of the early 2023-24 season.