New NBA In-season tournament - what it is and how does it work?

Victor Petkov

Head of Content

Last Updated: Nov 2 | 12:31 PM

4 min read

New NBA In-season tournament – what it is and how does it work?

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The games begin this Friday

The NBA’s In-Season Tournament starts Friday, after years of talks and planning by the franchise and the clubs. This means every team will have another chance to win a trophy during the season.

Since the beginning of the NBA as we all know it, the big prize is the NBA Finals trophy and all teams invest their power into reaching the play-offs and eventually – the final games.

How the new tournament looks like?

Every Tuesday and Friday in November has been designated as a tournament night. There are six five-team groups; teams play the other four teams in their group once. The six group winners make the quarterfinals, as will a pair of wild-card teams that will be the two best second-place finishers from all the groups.

Quarterfinal games are on December 4th and 5th with the semis two days later in Las Vegas and the title game on December 9th again in Sin City.

There are 14 teams that will begin play Friday and 13 teams will get their first tournament games in on November 10. Orlando and Atlanta won’t start their tournament schedules until November 14, and Toronto doesn’t make its tournament debut until November 17.

Every game in the tournament counts as one of the 82 regular-season games that all teams will play this season and will be included in the team’s official records.

All teams that don’t qualify for the knockout stage will play the scheduled regular-season games in the beginning of December.

The Heist. 💎

NBA’s promo for the new In-Season Tournament is 🔥

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(via @NBA)pic.twitter.com/kELBECs0HF

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) October 25, 2023