LAS VEGAS – Near the end of the second NBA Cup semifinal game here Saturday between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Houston Rockets, there was a brief scuffle on the court between the two up-and-coming Western Conference foes.

It had been a physical game between two defenders who liked to attack each other, and the arguments eventually broke out into a bit of chirping, signing, and light shoving.

The NBA Cup “has a certain energy that makes it very competitive,” Thunder forward Jalen Williams said after the game. “It’s probably because of the money. But he has a very competitive aspect. “Obviously everyone wants that free money.”

Now the league would never fully admit that it encouraged an altercation between players on the court, but NBA executives were probably pretty pleased when they saw the criticism between teams and Williams’ comments. That’s because the entire push behind the nascent NBA Cup, now entering its second season, is to add some excitement to early-season games. And in the second year, different stakeholders – coaches, players, fans – seem to be on board.

“It was fun,” Thunder star and MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said Monday, a day before his team was scheduled to face the Milwaukee Bucks in the Cup final. “Of course the additional stakes give the game a slightly different feel. It’s good preparation for the postseason. There’s obviously more at stake than in a regular season, and it’s good to get reps in games that mean a little more and have a little more on the line.”

One of the reasons for the increased stakes, as Williams mentioned, is the prize money. Players on the tournament winning team earn $514,971, compared to $205,988 for the runner-up team and $102,994 for the semifinal defeat.

“I like the tournament,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said before the semifinals. Rivers was open all weekend about wanting his team to be competitive and wasn’t afraid to want to win the Cup.

He added: “I think it’s a litmus test for the team. Looking at last year, I thought to myself, Indiana, are they going to make it to the Eastern finals if they don’t have this tournament?”

Both players and coaches from all teams involved seem to agree that the Cup hasn’t reached the level of the NBA playoffs, but the games have a little more energy than a typical regular season game. Even the scheduling of the games helps add a little flair. For example, Rivers said the two days off between the semifinals and finals allow his coaching staff to develop a more detailed game plan than would be the case for most games.

Perhaps even more important for the league: The fans also seem to have noticed the boost in energy.

“I know they added the Cup to be more competitive at the beginning of the season,” said Brandon Jones, a 36-year-old Los Angeles Lakers fan who was driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Jones bought tickets to the West semifinals before he knew which teams would compete, then also bought tickets to the East semifinals when he saw how affordable the seats were. “As a fan, it’s cool because it gives you a little more joy.”

“I like that it’s a little more intense and there’s a difference, you know?” said Rishab Aida, a 24-year-old Golden State Warriors fan who lives in nearby Henderson, Nevada. “I like that they offer incentives at every level of the cup so the players have something to play for. It’s cool that the players took it a little bit seriously.”

While the league is open to further developments and adjustments to the tournament, it also appears to be happy with the growth of the cup in its second season. After the first Cup, NBA executives went on what they called a “listening tour” with players, coaches and front office members to get honest feedback about what worked and what didn’t.

One tweak the NBA made was moving back-to-back semifinal games from a weekday to the weekend after the league admitted that the afternoon start time on a Thursday last year may have led to a decline in viewership. According to the league, both semifinals this year drew over 17,000 fans.

No problem is too small for the NBA when it comes to fine-tuning the Cup. This year, for example, the league adjusted the Cup’s points and point difference rules to disincentivize teams to intentionally play overtime to give themselves five extra minutes to increase the score. (Point difference is a crucial tiebreaker in cup group games.)

Evan Wasch, NBA director of strategy and analysis, says the tournament will continue to evolve in the coming years. According to Wasch, two things the league was particularly proud of this year were the approval of the players, who seemed to have understood the format much better in the cup’s second season. And also the willingness of teams to accept the point difference tiebreaker and try to keep scoring at the end of the games.

Ultimately, the NBA recognizes that the Cup still has some growth ahead of it to reach its ultimate goal.

“These things take time; traditions aren’t established overnight,” Wasch told NBC News on Monday. “I certainly wasn’t alive in the 1940s, but I would imagine the NBA Finals didn’t have the same significance back then. We had no illusions that this would reach the level that it ultimately could reach in the first or second year, or maybe even the third, fourth or fifth year. And I don’t think anyone can say exactly when it will reach the peak or plateau that we hope it will reach.

Wasch said the hope is that the Cup “becomes a true second championship, that the idea that there is only one thing to win each year will be challenged over time by this Cup.”