New York Knicks vs. Chicago Bulls: Game Highlights (1:09)New York Knicks vs. Chicago Bulls: Game Highlights (1:09)
How will this impact the regular-season schedule and standings?
Are the semifinals and finals still being played in Las Vegas?
Will anyone earn individual honors for their play in NBA Cup games?
The third iteration of the Emirates NBA Cup tipped off on Halloween night, Oct. 31 — a little over a week after the 2025-26 NBA regular season tips off.
LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers won the inaugural in-season tournament trophy in 2023, with James claiming the honors of tournament MVP. Last season, Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks raised their NBA Cup banner over the eventual NBA champions, the Oklahoma City Thunder.
But which team will claim its stake over the hardware in Las Vegas this year, and can it continue that tournament momentum into the postseason?
The Chicago Bulls continue to roll. They are 5-0 for the first time since Michael Jordan donned a Bulls uniform, and the Eastern Conference’s lone unbeaten team after their victory over the New York Knicks on Friday night to tip off the NBA Cup.
Every season, an unexpected team has started hot and advanced to Las Vegas. The Bulls could be that team this season after some impressive wins over projected playoff teams in the East — Detroit, Orlando, Atlanta and New York, which was the favorite to win this Cup group.
But Chicago has a team-first, fast-paced offense built on ball movement and playing as a unit. Chicago collected 31 assists on 45 field goals, and six players finished in double figures.
Josh Giddey set a career high with 32 points in his best all-around scoring performance since joining Chicago at the start of last season. Shooting has long been a hole in his game, but Giddey knocked down four 3s in the first half, matching a career high for any half.
The Bulls have been one of the league’s biggest surprises to start the season, and with a statement win against a contender Friday, they could carry that momentum and play for something more. — Jamal Collier
Typically, the NBA sends out a full 82-game schedule in mid-August. Now, the league sends out only 80 games and leaves a gap for roughly a week to fill in later, depending on how the group stage of the NBA Cup plays out.
Any team that makes it to the semifinals in Las Vegas would have that game moved later into the schedule to avoid back-to-back games. The NBA made this change in an effort to avoid having empty days on the calendar while attempting to minimize back-to-back games for all teams as much as possible.
Most of the games are being shown on Amazon Prime, including the knockout rounds. The schedule is also primarily on Fridays, beginning on Halloween, rather than bouncing back and forth from Tuesday to Friday throughout November as it did during the first two years of the tournament.
To create the groups, the NBA put all 15 teams in each conference into five pots, separated by their finish in last season’s standings. Pot 1 included the teams that finished 1-3 in regular-season record, teams 4-6 went into Pot 2, teams 7-9 into Pot 3, teams 10-12 into Pot 4, and teams 13-15 into Pot 5. As a result, the following groups were drawn:
NBA commissioner Adam Silver has had a long-standing fascination with European soccer. Establishing an in-season cup competition within the NBA schedule came from soccer leagues having both a regular-season title, won by the team with the most points over the full year, and a separate tournament (or, in some leagues, multiple tournaments) that runs concurrently with the league season. In England, for example, there are the various divisions — led by the Premier League — and also the FA Cup competition. But unlike those European leagues, which play their cup competitions outside of their league schedules, the NBA Cup is built into the regular-season slate. The 30 NBA teams are split into six five-team groups — three featuring Eastern Conference teams, and three comprising Western Conference teams — with each team then playing one game against the other four in its group. The winner of each group, plus the team with the best record among the non-group winners, will then advance to the knockout stage of the competition.
The teams that reach the NBA Cup’s finale will actually play 83 games — though the championship game won’t count toward the standings or any statistical markers. All four teams that make it to Las Vegas for the semifinals will have completed their 82 games, and won’t need anything else added. The additional wrinkle added to this year’s schedule is the possibility that a few dates on the calendar may move around. On Dec. 8, there are currently three games scheduled: the Sacramento Kings at the Indiana Pacers; the Phoenix Suns at the Minnesota Timberwolves; and the San Antonio Spurs at the New Orleans Pelicans. If any of those teams are playing in the quarterfinals, taking place on Dec. 9 and 10, those games would move to Dec. 7 (a decision that would be made by Nov. 29, the day after the end of the group stage). This also would only be an issue if one of the teams were playing on Dec. 9. If they’re playing Dec. 10, nothing will change. The other scheduling quirk is that there are currently eight teams — the Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, LA Clippers, Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves, Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs and Washington Wizards — scheduled to play on Dec. 17, the day after the championship game in Las Vegas.
Before its launch, one of the main questions surrounding the in-season tournament was why any team would be incentivized to compete in it. The NBA ensured teams will be motivated by making every game part of the season — and, being in-conference, potentially important from a playoff-tiebreaker standpoint. If this had been set up like the cup tournaments in European soccer, there would have been nothing stopping NBA teams from opting out, literally or figuratively — sitting their top players for extra rest.
In 2023, the first year the tournament was held, the players on the winning team received $500,000 each, while those on the runners-up got $200,000. The losing players of the semifinals each got $100,000, and those ousted in the quarterfinals each got $50,000. Now, in each subsequent year, the prizes will be slightly higher, as a result of negotiated raises year over year to keep pace with increases in the salary cap and basketball-related income as part of the most recent collective bargaining agreement between the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association.
New York Knicks vs. Chicago Bulls: Game Highlights (1:09)New York Knicks vs. Chicago Bulls: Game Highlights (1:09)
West C: Houston Rockets, Denver Nuggets, Golden State Warriors, Portland Trail Blazers, San Antonio Spurs
Can the Bulls’ surprise fast start lead them to Vegas?
There will be an MVP award, as well as an all-tournament team.
The league struck a sponsorship deal with Emirates, the Dubai-based airline, to sponsor the tournament after its initial run. The NBA said last year that it went with the most basic titles for both the tournament and its trophy — the “in-season tournament” and “NBA Cup” — as a way to introduce the concept to fans. However, using such nondescript names had another clear advantage: It gave the league a blank slate in case the tournament and cup became properties it ended up selling to a sponsor, and avoided the complications that could arise by naming them after someone (for example, the late NBA commissioner David Stern, one possibility that had been floated before the tournament was officially unveiled).
New York Knicks vs. Chicago Bulls: Game Highlights (1:09)
East A: Cleveland Cavaliers, Indiana Pacers, Atlanta Hawks, Toronto Raptors, Washington Wizards
East B: Boston Celtics, Detroit Pistons, Orlando Magic, Brooklyn Nets, Philadelphia 76ers
East C: New York Knicks, Milwaukee Bucks, Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat, Charlotte Hornets
West A: Oklahoma City Thunder, Minnesota Timberwolves, Sacramento Kings, Phoenix Suns, Utah Jazz
West B: Los Angeles Lakers, LA Clippers, Memphis Grizzlies, Dallas Mavericks, New Orleans Pelicans
Golden State Warriors at San Antonio Spurs, 9:30 p.m. (Prime)
Minnesota Timberwolves at Oklahoma City Thunder, 7:30 p.m. (ESPN)
Los Angeles Lakers at Memphis Grizzlies, 9:30 p.m. (Prime)
Denver Nuggets at Portland Trail Blazers, 10:00 p.m.
Los Angeles Lakers at Memphis Grizzlies, 9:30 p.m. (Prime)
Denver Nuggets at Portland Trail Blazers, 10:00 p.m.
Cleveland Cavaliers at Washington Wizards, 7:00 p.m.
Houston Rockets at San Antonio Spurs, 7:30 p.m. (Prime)
Oklahoma City Thunder at Sacramento Kings, 10:00 p.m.
Golden State Warriors at Denver Nuggets, 10:00 p.m. (Prime)
Portland Trail Blazers at Houston Rockets, 8:00 p.m.
Los Angeles Lakers at New Orleans Pelicans, 8:00 p.m.
Sacramento Kings at Minnesota Timberwolves, 8:00 p.m.
Indiana Pacers at Cleveland Cavaliers, 7:00 p.m. (Prime)
New Orleans Pelicans at Dallas Mavericks, 8:30 p.m.
Denver Nuggets at Houston Rockets, 9:30 p.m. (Prime)
Portland Trail Blazers at Golden State Warriors, 10:00 p.m.
Orlando Magic at Philadelphia 76ers, 8:00 p.m. (Peacock)
LA Clippers at Los Angeles Lakers, 11:00 p.m. (Peacock)
Detroit Pistons at Boston Celtics, 5:00 p.m. (ESPN)
Memphis Grizzlies at New Orleans Pelicans, 8:00 p.m.
Houston Rockets at Golden State Warriors, 10:00 p.m. (ESPN)
San Antonio Spurs at Portland Trail Blazers, 10:00 p.m.
Milwaukee Bucks at New York Knicks, 7:30 p.m. (Prime)
Dallas Mavericks at Los Angeles Lakers, 10:00 p.m. (Prime)