The Wolves begin the NBA Cup. How does the in-season tournament work?

by Junna Base November 13, 2024

The Minnesota Timberwolves are poised to begin the NBA Cup, the league’s annual seasonal tournament that began last season, with Tuesday night’s group game against the Portland Trail Blazers at the Moda Center in Portland.

Since the In-Season Tournament is only in its second season, a little refresher on how it works might be in order.

Here you can see how it works:

First there are two phases: the group game and the knockout round. For group play, which began on Tuesday evening, the teams will be divided into groups of five within their conference. The Wolves – for example – are in West Group A.

Groups will be determined by random drawing based on the team’s record from the previous season. Each team plays the other four teams in its group once in the group stage, and a team’s record in group play determines whether or not it advances to the knockout rounds. Eight teams advance to the knockout rounds – the six winners of their individual groups and two wildcard teams. The Wild Cards are the top team in each conference that did not win their group.

If multiple teams within a group are tied or fighting for a wildcard spot, a tiebreaker occurs. In order, the tiebreakers are the direct record in the group game, the point difference in the group game, the total points in the group game, the record from the 2023-24 season and in the almost impossible situation in which no winner is determined after all of this happens a random drawing.

The eight remaining teams advance to the knockout round, a single-elimination style round. It begins with the quarterfinals, where the teams with the two best records in each conference host games (tiebreaker protocol remains the same). The team with the best record in each conference hosts their respective wild card team. The winners advance to the semi-finals.

The semi-finals will take place on December 14th at a neutral site and the winners will meet on December 17th for the championship.

With the exception of the championship game, all season tournament games count as regular season games. The 22 teams that do not make it to the knockout rounds will play two regular season games while the regular season tournament continues. The losing teams from each conference’s quarterfinals play each other to make up for their additional regular season play, while a formula-based approach is used to determine games for the other teams.

Below are the Timberwolves’ key dates and schedule for the season tournament: