Alexander Gaitan 10/29/2023 NBA
One of the new features of the 2023/24 season in the NBA is the arrival of the In-Season Tournament, an annual competition where the 30 teams will fight for a cup during the first third of the season. From a group stage to the final four in Las Vegas, the new In-Season Tournament promises strong emotions. And here we are going to explain everything you need to know to understand the new tournament, which starts this Friday.
In-Season Tournament format
The new NBA In-Season Tournament tries to absorb the essence of the European basketball cup tournaments with the difference that it will be played by all 30 NBA franchises. Therefore, a preliminary group stage has been created: the 30 teams have been divided into six groups, three per conference, out of five according to last year’s winning record. Each team will play once against its four rivals to decide who qualifies for the second round. Only the winner of each group and the best second-place finisher in the entire conference, who will enter as a wild-card, will qualify for the quarterfinals. In total there will be four teams per conference that enter.
For the quarterfinals they will continue to be divided by conference: the best team in the conference will receive the worst classified of the four, the wild-card, and the second best the third. The two winners will travel to Las Vegas where the semifinals and final of the tournament will be played. The three series, quarterfinals, semis and final are a single match. The winner will win the first NBA Cup and a financial prize of $500,000 for each player, with $200,000 for the finalists, $100,000 for playing in the semifinals and half, $50,000 for losing in the quarterfinals. There will also be an MVP and an All-Tournament Team.
The group stage and quarterfinal matches will be played at the home of one of the two teams involved, while the final four will be played at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. In the case of the group stage, it was done by draw to play two at home and two as visitors, in the case of the quarterfinals, for the team with the best record in the group. In addition, all games except the final count towards the regular season, so there will only be one extra game on the schedule for the two finalists while the rest of the teams stay in the usual 82 games.
Calendario del In-Season Tournament
There are two different parts during the In-Season Tournament, the regular phase and the final phase. During the first half, the 30 teams divided into six groups will play four games. These games, which as we have already explained are part of the regular season, will be played every Tuesday and Friday of the month of November (except for November 7 when there will be no NBA due to the US elections): 3, 10, 14, 17, 21, 24 and 28 of the month. On those nights, all the games played will be part of the tournament.
By the end of the month, those classified for the second phase, the knockout round, will be known, which will be played in December. The quarterfinals between 4 and 5, and the semifinals and final will be on December 7 and 9, Thursday and Saturday. During that week, the 22 teams that have not qualified for the final phase of the tournament will play two more regular season games to complete the 82 games of each season, since in the calendar that was published in August, only 80 were announced. meetings. The four teams that lose in the quarterfinals, two per conference, will play each other on Friday, December 8 to reach the total of 82.
Groups and parties
To decide the three groups of each conference, the NBA used last year’s record in order to try to balance. The best three were in the first pot, the next three in the second and so on respectively until a fifth pot with the three worst teams from each conference. The groups were like this:
After playing two games at home and two away, all of them having an impact on the regular season, the winner of each group will be decided. In the event of a tie, the tiebreakers will be (in this order) direct duel, point differential, points scored, winning record last season and, as a last resort, a draw. The complete schedule of all In-Season Tournament matches can be found here. That the games are also regular season (all except the final) means that they also count for individual awards, having a double impact.
It is only the first year of the tournament, which will surely have adjustments and improvements as the seasons go by. But the NBA has been thinking about adding a new competition during the course of the regular season for a decade and this In-Season Tournament is the result. Now we just need to know who will be the first winner.
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2023-10-30 07:54:05
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