The 2023 NBA In-Season Tournament was a multi-stage basketball tournament that played during the 2023–24 NBA season. It was the first edition of the NBA Cup, then under the working name NBA In-Season Tournament. All 30 teams participated, 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 counted towards the regular season standings. The tournament's semifinals and championship game were played at T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip.
The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Indiana Pacers in the championship game, and Los Angeles' LeBron James was named the Most Valuable Player for the tournament.
The tournament's format was similar to in-season, multi-stage tournaments in European soccer.[1]
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 3 and November 28 counted in the regular season standings and the In-Season Tournament standings. Each team played 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 had equal records upon completion of group play, the following tiebreakers were applied in this order:[1]
Each group's winner then advanced to the knockout stage, as did one wild card from each conference—the group runner-up with the best group stage record. The knockout stage was a single-elimination tournament. Quarterfinal games were played in local NBA markets on December 4 and 5, 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 were played on December 7, and the championship was on December 9. The final two rounds were played at T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip.[1]
Quarterfinal and semifinal games counted as regular season games, affecting teams' positions in league standings, but the championship game did not. Statistics from the championship game are also not counted in regular season totals.[1]
To balance the regular season, the four teams that lost in the quarterfinals played one additional game on December 8, against each other in the same conference.[1]
While the knockout stage was played, the 22 teams that did not qualify for the knockout stage each played 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 were intra-conference games, with an attempt by the league to schedule as many pairs of teams which were originally scheduled to only play each other three times during the regular season. The other two matchups were interconference games, as there was an odd number of teams in each conference (11). These two interconference matchups featured four of the six teams that finished last in their respective group.[1]
Players on teams advancing to the knockout stage will receive prize money as follows:[2]
Teams were allocated into five pots per conference based on the 2022–23 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][3]
The initial groups were revealed during the tournament announcement on July 8, 2023.[4] The five teams in each group were selected by a draw of one team from each of the five pots for the conference in question.
Home team listed first (quarterfinals only).
Source:[5]
During the Kings-Pelicans game on December 4, a 34-year-old Kings fan named Gregorio "Greg" Florez Breedlove had a medical emergency during the first quarter of that game and died 20 minutes after emergency medical services arrived to try and help him out.[6][7] A day later, during the Suns-Lakers game on December 5, the game's conclusion was met with serious controversy due to a controversial timeout that was given to the Lakers by the referees near the end of the game despite the Lakers not holding possession of the ball at the time the timeout was called.[8][9][10] However, according to commissioner Adam Silver, it was considered the right call by the notion that Austin Reaves had his left hand on the ball while pinned under his left leg before it got loosened up again.[11]
The Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA Cup. LeBron James was the inaugural MVP and was given the award after the championship game on December 9. On December 11, the NBA announced the All-Tournament Team.[12]
The group stage of the tournament was covered by the NBA's existing broadcasters.
In national linear television broadcasts in the United States, TNT had selected Tuesday games, ESPN aired selected Friday games, and NBA TV had two on Friday, November 24.[13] Most group stage games were instead only televised locally by the teams' regional broadcasters.[14][15][16] During the knockout stage, TNT aired all four quarterfinals in prime time[17] on December 4 and 5. For the semifinals on December 7, ESPN televised the early game and TNT had the late game. The championship game aired on ABC in prime time on December 9.[18][19]
TruTV also aired three alternative telecasts of quarterfinal and semifinal games that air on TNT during the knockout round.
ESPN2 also aired an alternate telecast for the championship game on December 9.[20]
All TNT's games were streamed on Max including two exclusive alternate telecast of quarterfinal games on December 5.[15] NBA League Pass offered out-of-market group stage games, as well as live access to NBA TV's games.[16]
In Canada, national coverage of all Toronto Raptors games and other selected games were split between TSN, Sportsnet, and NBA TV Canada.[21][22]
Ahead of the semifinals, ESPN and TNT announced that their broadcast teams would collaborate on each other's coverage. For ESPN, TNT's Reggie Miller joined Mike Breen, Doris Burke and Lisa Salters, while on TNT, ESPN's Doc Rivers joined Kevin Harlan, Candace Parker and Allie LaForce. TNT's Inside the NBA (including NBA Tip-off) studio team of Ernie Johnson Jr., Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal also collaborated with their ESPN counterparts, the NBA Countdown studio team of Malika Andrews, Stephen A. Smith, Michael Wilbon, Bob Myers and Adrian Wojnarowski, during the other network's coverage. Specifically, it was announced that the Inside the NBA team would appear on NBA Countdown while Smith and Wilbon would appear on Inside the NBA.[23][24]