Photos by Michael Gonzales/NBAE via Getty Images The Silver and Black meet Utah and try to win their second NBA Cup contest Welcome to the Game Thread. Veterans of the Game Thread know how we do things around here, but for all you newbies we have a few rules. Our community guidelines apply and basically say be cool, no personal attacks, don’t troll and don’t swear too much. The Spurs are playing their third game in the NBA Cup tonight against the Jazz, who they’ve already met three times this season. Tonight should be the last meeting between Utah and San Antonio, unless they somehow end up meeting in one of the two games that will get added for teams that don’t make the knockout rounds. The Spur play their fourth and final NBA Cup game next Tuesday against the Suns, and will need to win both tonight and next Tuesday, to have a shot at advancing to the knockout rounds, which will start on December 10-11, semifinals on December 14, and finals on the 17th. Teams that don’t advance to the knockout rounds will play their games during the same week as the knockout tournament. Even if they win both remaining Cup games, the Spurs will likely need some of the teams ahead of them in the wild card standings to lose or they will have to run up the score enough to overcome the Mavericks’ 40+ point advantage in the point differential. OK, that’s a lot of exposition, for what’s just a regular season game against one of the worst teams in the league that the Spurs have already beaten twice of their three meetings. The Spurs won both games in San Antonio, and Utah won a one point squeaker in their house on November 9, 111-110. The Silver and Black currently have a three game winning streak, and if they win tonight, they could have their first four game win streak since March 28, 2022. On paper, the Spurs should easily roll over the tanking Jazz, but with Collin Sexton and Lauri Markkanen, they have enough talent to beat the Spurs if they don’t deliver their best effort. This is the first night of a back-to-back for the Spurs, who face the Lakers tomorrow, so they will want to put the Jazz away early and try to get some extra time off for the starters for tomorrow’s contest against a playoff contender. Playback with Pounding the Rock: Marilyn Dubinski, J.R. Wilco, and Jacob Douglas will be streaming the game and interacting with PTR readers on Playback. It’s just another way to enjoy the game, so join us there or in the discussion thread. Or do both. Game Prediction: Mitch Johnson will sub himself in for Keldon Johnson after KJ misses a defensive rotation. One final word: Go Spurs GOOOOOO!! San Antonio Spurs at Utah JazzNovember 26, 2024 | 8:00 PM CTStreaming: NBA League PassTV: Fanduel Sports Southwest Reminder: It is against site policy to post links to illegal streams in the comments, but it is not against site policy to exchange email addresses, for instance.