By how the NBA defines pace, which is a bit of a flawed stat, the Knicks aren’t playing that much faster. They’re still bottom-five in that category. Their secondary assists and passes per game aren’t much improved, if at all.

Knicks captain Jalen Brunson leads the way before New York and San Antonio vie for the Emirates NBA Cup in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

Jalen Brunson got hot in Las Vegas at the right time. The Knicks’ All-NBA point guard dropped his first 40-point game of the season on the Magic, plus dished out eight assists, to put New York into the championship game of the NBA Cup.

No, the NBA Cup is not the same as the playoffs. But it provides the Knicks with an opportunity to gain more experience in playoff-like atmospheres.

The New York Knicks and Orlando Magic meet in the NBA Cup semifinals on Saturday in Las Vegas. Here's how to watch and more on this must-win game.

The New York Knicks thumped the Toronto Raptors on Dec. 9 in a 117-101 NBA Cup quarterfinal victory fueled by a massive night from Jalen Brunson.

By making it to the final, the Knicks and Spurs already have secured $212,373 per player from the NBA Cup prize money pool. The losing team on Tuesday gets nothing extra. Players on the winning team get an additional $308,560 — pushing their Cup winnings to $530,933 each. Two-way players get half of what players on standard contracts get.