NBA Cup 2025: Quarterfinals preview, format, how much money players can win in NBA’s in-season tournament

We have reached the NBA Cup quarterfinals, the eight-team knockout round — now things get serious. Especially for the players on those teams, because the money is now very real.

“I think half a million dollars is still a good amount of money to be able to motivate you to want to win games,” the Lakers’ Jake LaRavia told NBC Sports recently.

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Here is everything you need to know about the NBA Cup quarterfinals matchups on Tuesday and Wednesday, and what happens from there.

What’s the NBA Cup 2025 format?

This is the one thing that has remained largely the same through the three years of the NBA Cup. First, all 30 teams were drawn into one of the six five-team groups (three East groups and three West groups). Each team plays the other teams in its group once — four games total — and those games count double as both regular-season and NBA Cup games.

The six group winners plus a wild card from each conference advance to the quarterfinals, where we are now. Those teams are placed in an eight-team knockout bracket (East vs. East, West vs. West, until the Finals). Starting with Tuesday’s games, they are single-elimination.

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What are the quarterfinals matchups?

Eastern Conference

Dec. 9 (on Amazon Prime)

Miami Heat at Orlando Magic

Game Analysis: After a slow start to their season, Orlando found its footing just as the NBA Cup got rolling. Not only did the Magic sweep into the quarterfinals, but it also comes in hot, having gone 7-3 in their last 10 with a top-10 offense and defense over that stretch. However, the Magic will enter the game without their best player this season, Franz Wagner, who suffered a high ankle sprain on Sunday.

Miami has been one of the great surprises of the season, with Erik Spoelstra flipping the Heat offense on its head, putting in an up-tempo, fast-decision offense that shuns picks in favor of isolation attacks. The good news is that the Heat are basically healthy for this game, with Norman Powell and Tyler Herro ready to go. The bad news is they come in cold having dropped three in a row, and in the past couple of weeks their defense and offense have fallen…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/nba-cup-2025-quarterfinals-preview-053449210.html

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Publish date : 2025-12-09 05:34:00

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