Tactical: The Cavaliers Unveils Practical Strategy to Advance in the NBA In-Season Tournament
CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Cavs don’t control their own fate heading into the final day of group play in the NBA’s inaugural in-season tournament.
Indiana already won Eastern Conference Group A, leaving Cleveland’s only path via one of the two available wild-card spots — and even that will require plenty of help.
The Cavs are 2-1 in group play with a matchup against the Atlanta Hawks at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse on Tuesday night. But five other East teams — New York, Miami, Brooklyn, Boston and Orlando — also have just one tournament loss thus far. The Magic have already finished group play at 3-1.
So, in order to clinch a wild-card berth, becoming one of eight total teams (six group winners and two wild cards) to reach the knockout round, the Cavs, for starters, must beat Atlanta and have New York, Miami, Boston and Brooklyn all lose.
If that happens, they are on to the knockout round.
Theoretically, the Cavs could also advance by beating Atlanta and winning the tiebreaker over any second-place team from another group with the same record. In this scenario, the tiebreaker would be point-differential.
Going into Tuesday night, Cleveland’s point-differential is plus-6, putting them fourth in the current wild-card standings.
The Celtics’ point differential is 0 heading into their group play finale at home against reeling Chicago — a chance to perhaps win and increase that margin.
There’s also undefeated-in-tournament-play Milwaukee, which could either solidify East Group B with a win over Miami or earn the wild card by losing and still retaining the top point-differential. The Bucks enter the night with a whopping plus-39 point differential.
The Magic could still either win East Group C with a Brooklyn loss or end up in the wild-card race. Orlando finished with a point differential of plus-22. If the Magic were to drop out of first in Group C and down to the wild card, the Cavs would then need to beat Atlanta by at least 16 points just to overtake Orlando — one of a plethora of viable wild-card competitors.
The Cleveland-Atlanta showdown — and the many other consequential matchups — will tip off at 7:30 p.m., meaning Cleveland’s fate may not be determined until the final buzzer.
Even though it’s a relative longshot, the Cavs consider the in-season tournament meaningful and are treating it as such.
“It’s an opportunity to win,” Cavs coach J.B. Bickerstaff said recently. “Any time you have an opportunity to win, it matters. You put a trophy in front of guys, you put a championship in front of guys, and it matters. There’s a sense of pressure that is good for growth for games that are meaningful like this tournament is. It’s an opportunity for our guys to play in adverse conditions with one another and in those types of situation, you gain experience and gain that trust because it’s just us against everybody else. I think it’s great for us.”
The knockout rounds, featuring eight teams, will begin on Dec. 4. The four teams that advance from the knockout round will travel to Las Vegas. The NBA Cup will be awarded on Dec. 9.
The 22 teams — the Cavs could be one of them — that fail to make the knockout round will play a pair of regular-season games against opponents yet to be determined during that same week.
Leave a Reply