Mussatto: Give the NBA In-Season Tournament a shot. Here's how it works for OKC Thunder.
The NBA is awfully excited about this whole In-Season Tournament thing.
“Are they ever,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault quipped.
Daigneault, like the rest of us, has seen the Michael Imperioli casino commercial and the garish courts. The league’s campaign to promote the inaugural tournament has spared little expense. This is Adam Silver’s pet project, after all.
And you know what? I’m here for it. Here for the color-rush courts and trying to figure this thing out on the fly. Will it stick? I have no idea. Typically, traditions form organically. The In-Season Tournament spawned from a Secaucus office. But hey, it can still be fun!
The Thunder will play its second of four group stage games Friday night at the Kings. A week ago, the Thunder lost its first In-Season Tournament game at the buzzer to the Warriors.
“Our players are just naturally competitive,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said of the tournament. “That’s why they made it to the NBA in the first place. You put something in front of them, they’re gonna play for it.”
Warriors players compared the Thunder’s blue court to Boise State’s blue turf. And that’s the point. Green football fields are as commonplace as wood grain basketball courts. But our eyes have been trained to instantly identify Boise State’s football field. And now the NBA is trying to train our eyes to instantly recognize an In-Season Tournament game.
If it’s being played on a crazy-looking court, it’s a tournament game.
Last Friday, when the tournament tipped-off, the seven games that night were decided by an average of 4.6 points per game. Golden State’s 141-139 win at OKC was one of three games decided by two points.
The games were great and the crowd at Paycom Center was hyped. But were the games good because there were new stakes on the line, or was it just an entertaining night in the NBA? Was the crowd in Oklahoma City fired up for the In-Season Tournament, or was it packed because it was Friday night and Stephen Curry and the Warriors were in town?
No matter the reason, adding new juice to what can be a slog of an NBA regular season is worth a shot. The games are played during football season, but on non-traditional college football and NFL nights of Tuesday and Friday.
“One of the things we’ve learned in player development is changing the developmental environment is good for the player,” Daigneault said. “You don’t wanna develop in a lab. Randomness, chaos, a lack of predictability — all that stuff helps you learn.
“The fact that it’s different, different court, different setting, there’s commercials about it, there’s a tournament at the end … It creates different distractions we have to cut through.”
More: 'Play to their strengths': How Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder dashed past Cavaliers
How the NBA In-Season Tournament works
All 30 teams were separated by conference and drawn into six groups of five — three West groups and three East groups. Groups were drawn based on last season’s standings.
The Thunder is in West Group C with the Warriors, Spurs, Kings and Timberwolves.
Tuesdays and Fridays in November will be dedicated exclusively to group play games. Each team will play four group stage games — one against every team in its group. Each team will have two home and two road group stage games.
Group stage games count toward a team’s regular season-record.
The top-eight teams — the six group winners and two wild cards from each conference — will advance to the knockout stage.
The quarterfinals (Dec. 4-5), semifinals (Dec. 7) and finals (Dec. 9) will be single elimination. The semifinals and championship will be played in Las Vegas. The winner will be awarded the NBA Cup.
The winning team’s players and head coach will receive $500,000. The runner-ups will receive $200,000 each, with smaller payouts for teams that reach the quarterfinals and semifinals.
Every game of the tournament will count toward the 2023-24 NBA standings except for the championship game.
More: 'Chet is a problem': Warriors latest NBA team showing respect to Thunder's Chet Holmgren
Group stage tiebreakers
With each team only playing four group stage games, there will likely be ties in the standings.
In the event two or more teams are tied within a group, here are the tiebreakers in sequential order:
1. Head-to-head record in group stage
2. Point differential in group stage
3. Total points scored in group stage
4. Regular-season record from 2022-23 season
5. Random drawing (in the unlikely event that teams are still tied)
More: OKC Thunder letting Cason Wallace 'be free on the defensive side' to lock down Hawks
OKC Thunder In-Season Tournament schedule
Friday, Nov. 3: vs. Warriors, 141-139 loss
Friday, Nov. 10: at Kings
Tuesday, Nov. 14: vs. Spurs
Tuesday, Nov. 28: at Timberwolves
West Group C standings
1. Golden State (1-0)
2. Oklahoma City (0-1)
3. Sacramento (0-0)
4. Minnesota (0-0)
5. San Antonio (0-0)
More: OKC Thunder schedule: How to watch the Thunder in 2023-24 NBA season
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Give the NBA In-Season Tournament a shot. Here's how it works.
