What Are NBA In-Season Tournament Rules & Format Followed?

The NBA’s In-season tournament floors made their much-awaited premiere on Friday night, following their modest unveiling on Monday.

The first-ever league-wide competition began on the modified courts on the same day as the Cavaliers and Pacers game in Indiana took place. Although there was a lot of enthusiasm on Day 1 of the tournament, NBA fans continued to have a mixed reaction to the new-look venues.

All 30 clubs will take part in a tournament during the regular season for the first time ever, and it won’t have an impact on the rankings.

What Are NBA In-Season Tournament Rules & Format Followed?

First off, the Heat have not started 0–5 in five games since the beginning of the 2007–08 season. The Heat started a three-game homestand with a disappointing 109-105 defeat to the undermanned Brooklyn Nets on Wednesday night, dropping them to 1-4 on the year.

Second, the Heat will play their first of four group play games in the NBA’s first In-Season Tournament on Friday at Kaseya Center (8 p.m., Bally Sports Sun) versus the similarly bad Wizards (1-3).

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Group Play and Knockout Rounds are the two phases of the In-Season Tournament.

A. Group Play

Based on their won-loss records from the 2022–2023 regular season, all 30 clubs were randomly assigned to groups of five within their conference. Every team will play four official Group Play games on “Tournament Nights” starting on Tuesday, Nov. 28 and lasting through Nov. 3. Each club will play two games at home and two away, one against each opponent in its group.

B. Knockout Rounds

Eight teams—two “wild cards” (the teams from each conference with the best record in Group Play games that ended) and the team with the best standing in Group Play games in each of the six groups—will move on to the Knockout Rounds.

Single-elimination games will be used for the Knockout Rounds in the Quarterfinals (which will take place in NBA franchise markets on Monday, December 4, and Tuesday, December 5), Semifinals, and Championship. The NBA Cup, the new In-Season Tournament trophy, and a prize fund will be up for grabs for the qualifying clubs.

Except for the Championship, all 67 games from both In-Season Tournament stages will be used to determine the regular-season rankings. In the 2023–24 season, all 82 regular-season games for each team, including those in Group Play and the Knockout Rounds, will still be played.

All seven Knockout Round games and fourteen Group Play games (two on each Tournament Night) will be broadcast nationwide on television. In August, the In-Season Tournament schedule for games and broadcasts will be revealed.

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Group Play Draw

Western Conference

West Group A West Group B West Group C
Memphis Grizzlies Denver Nuggets Sacramento Kings
Phoenix Suns LA Clippers Golden State Warriors
L.A. Lakers New Orleans Pelicans Minnesota Timberwolves
Utah Jazz Dallas Mavericks Oklahoma City Thunder
Portland Trail Blazers Houston Rockets San Antonio Spurs

Eastern Conference

East Group A East Group B East Group C
Philadelphia 76ers Milwaukee Bucks Boston Celtics
Cleveland Cavaliers New York Knicks Brooklyn Nets
Atlanta Hawks Miami Heat Toronto Raptors
Indiana Pacers Washington Wizards Chicago Bulls
Detroit Pistons Charlotte Hornets Orlando Magic

Group Play

In a Group face game, a team will face each of the other four teams in its group. A team’s eligibility for the Knockout Rounds will be based on how they do in these four intraconference games. If there is a tie between two or more teams in a group, the tie will be broken using the following tiebreakers (in chronological order):

• Head-to-head record in the Group Stage;
• Point differential in the Group Stage;
• Total points scored in the Group Stage;
• Regular season record from the 2022-23 NBA regular season; and
• Random drawing (in the unlikely scenario that two or more teams are still tied following the previous tiebreakers).

Eight teams—one wild card club from each conference and the team with the best record in Group Play games across all six groups—will move on to the Knockout Rounds. The squad from each conference that finished second in its group and with the best record in Group Play games will earn the wild card.

The same tiebreaker procedure as previously outlined will be used to break ties between teams if two or more are tied for the wild card in a conference (apart from the head-to-head record in the Group Stage). Group ties will be resolved prior to determining the wild card tiebreakers.

Knockout Rounds

The eight teams who advance from Group Play will play single-elimination games in the Knockout Rounds, starting with the Quarterfinals on December 4-5. If a team wins, it advances to the Semifinals on December 7 at a neutral location and the Championship on December 9 at a neutral site.

All purposes will treat games played in the Quarterfinals and Semifinals, the first and second rounds of the Knockout Rounds, respectively, as Regular Season games. The Championship will not be treated as a Regular Season game for the purposes of calculating a team’s Regular Season record or the performance of a player or team in a Regular Season game.

The two clubs in each conference with the best record in group play will host the quarterfinals, while the winner of the group play standings will host the wild card team. If two or more teams are tied for the best seed in a conference, the tie will be broken using the previously mentioned tiebreaker procedure.

The 22 clubs who don’t make it to the Knockout Rounds will play two regular-season games apiece during the Knockout Rounds on Wednesday, December 6, and Friday, December 8, when there are no In-Season Tournament games planned.

The Group Play standings in each conference will be used to establish the pairings for these games by a formulaic method (5th-15th). Since there will be an odd number of clubs in each conference who do not make it to the quarterfinals, two of the 22 games will be scheduled as cross-conference matches. Subject to travel restrictions, these cross-conference matchups involving the bottom-finishing teams in the Group Play round will be scheduled, and no team will play more than one of its two cross-conference games. The remaining twenty games will, if feasible, be planned inside conferences and will pit teams against each other three times during the season.

The four teams that lose in the Quarterfinals will each play a regular-season game on Friday, Dec. 8,  against the opponent in their same conference.

 

 

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