The 2024 NBA Cup (known as the Emirates NBA Cup for sponsorship reasons) is an ongoing multi-stagebasketball tournament being played during the 2024–25 NBA season. It is the second edition of the NBA Cup, then under the working name NBA In-Season Tournament. All 30 teams participate, each playing four regular season games that count towards the tournament's group stage standings. All games in the knockout round, except for the championship game, also count towards the regular season standings. The tournament's semifinals and championship game will be played at T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip. The Los Angeles Lakers are the defending champions.
In the group stage, each conference was divided into three groups with five teams each, for a total of six groups. Regular season games played on Tuesdays and Fridays between November 12 and December 3 are counted in the regular season standings and the NBA Cup standings.[2] Each team plays one game against each of the other teams in its group, for a total of four games (two at home and two on the road).[1]
If two or more teams in a group have equal records upon completion of group play, the following tiebreakers are applied in this order:[1]
Head-to-head record in the group stage
Point differential in the group stage (excluding overtime)[3]
Total points scored in the group stage (excluding overtime)
Regular season record from the 2023–24 regular season
Random drawing
Note: Overtime scoring will not count towards the point differential and total points tiebreakers in the Emirates NBA Cup. A team's point differential will be “0” in Group Play games that go to overtime, and a team's total points scored will exclude points scored in overtime.
Each group's winner then advances to the knockout stage, as does one wild card from each conference—the group runner-up with the best group stage record. The knockout stage is a single-elimination tournament. Quarterfinal games will be played in local NBA markets on December 10 and 11, with the teams with the top two group stage records in each conference hosting, and the best team in group-play games would host the wild-card team. The semifinals will be played on December 14, and the championship on December 17. The final two rounds will be played at T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip.[1]
Quarterfinal and semifinal games count as regular season games, affecting teams' positions in league standings, but the championship game does not. Statistics from the championship game are also not counted in regular season totals.[1]
To balance the regular season, the teams that don’t make bracket play will play two additional consolation games on December 12 or 13 and 15 or 16, against each other in the same conference, while teams that are eliminated in the quarterfinals will play one additional consolation game against each other (from the same conference) on December 15 or 16.[1]
While the knockout stage is played, the 22 teams that do not qualify for the knockout stage each play two additional regular season games, one home and one away, to complete each team's 82 game regular season schedule. Among these 22 total matchups, 20 are intra-conference games, with an attempt by the league to schedule as many pairs of teams that were originally scheduled to only play each other three times during the regular season. The other two matchups are interconference games, as there is an odd number of teams in each conference (11). These two interconference matchups will feature four of the six teams that finished last in their respective group.[1]
Teams were allocated into five pots per conference based on the 2023–24 regular season standings. Pot 1 contained the teams with the top three regular season records in each conference, while Pot 2 contained the teams with the fourth- to sixth-best records and so forth, concluding with Pot 5, which contained the teams with the bottom three (thirteenth through fifteenth) records.[1][5]
The group stage of the tournament will be covered by the NBA's existing broadcasters. During the group stage, TNT will air a doubleheader on Tuesday nights, while ESPN will air a doubleheader on Friday nights. NBA TV will air three additional games during the afternoon on Black Friday.[8]
