The Atlanta Hawks became the second team this season to knock off the Cleveland Cavaliers last night and they are now 8-11 while the Cavs are 17-2. The two teams will meet again on Friday afternoon, but there will be more at stake this time. Friday’s game is going to be part of the Emirates NBA Cup and the Atlanta Hawks have a chance to clinch a spot in the knockout round in Las Vegas.

It is going to take more than just a win over the Cavaliers though. The Hawks are going to need the Boston Celtics to defeat the Chicago Bulls tomorrow as well and while that seems like it should be a guarantee, anything can happen in the NBA, as last night proved and as the Hawks proved when they upset Boston. If the Hawks beat the Cavs and the Celtics beat Chicago, then the Hawks have won the group. The Wizards are the only team that has been eliminated from winning the group.

The Hawks had a dramatic win last night vs the Cavaliers and it was a record setting night for Trae Young. Young had one of the best games of his career, finishing with 20 points and 22 assists, a new career high in assists. Young almost was able to tie Mookie Blaylocks Hawks record for assists with 23.

Here is how the NBA Cup works, courtesy of nba.com:

“The Emirates NBA Cup 2024, the NBA’s second annual in-season competition, will tip off on Tuesday, Nov. 12 in team markets and culminate with the Semifinals (Saturday, Dec. 14) and Championship (Tuesday, Dec. 17) taking place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.  The complete schedule will be released in August.

The Emirates NBA Cup will consist of two stages: Group Play and the Knockout Rounds.

  > A. Group Play

All 30 teams have been randomly drawn into groups of five within their conference based on win-loss records from the 2023-24 regular season. Beginning Tuesday, Nov. 12 and continuing through Tuesday, Dec. 3, each team will play four designated Group Play games on “Cup Nights” – one game against each opponent in its group, with two games at home and two on the road.

Eight teams will advance to the Knockout Rounds: the team with the best standing in Group Play games in each of the six groups and two “wild cards” (the team from each conference with the best record in Group Play games that finished second in its group). The Knockout Rounds will consist of single-elimination games in the Quarterfinals (played in NBA team markets on Tuesday, Dec. 10 and Wednesday, Dec. 11) and Semifinals and Championship (played in Las Vegas on Dec. 14 and Dec. 17, respectively). The Knockout teams will compete for a prize pool and the NBA Cup championship trophy.

All 67 games across both stages of the Emirates NBA Cup will count toward the regular-season standings except the Championship. Each team will continue to play 82 regular-season games in the 2024-25 season, including those games that are part of Group Play and the Knockout Rounds. 

Fourteen games in Group Play (two games on each Cup Night) and all seven games in the Knockout Rounds will be televised nationally. The game and broadcast schedules for the Emirates NBA Cup Group Play stage will be announced in August. 

The Knockout Rounds will consist of single-elimination games for the eight teams that advance from Group Play, beginning with the Quarterfinals on Dec. 10-11. Teams that win will progress to the neutral-site Semifinals on Dec. 14, and then the Championship on Dec. 17. 

Games played in the first and second rounds of the Knockout Rounds (i.e., Quarterfinals and Semifinals, respectively) will count as regular-season-games for all purposes. The Championship will not be counted as a regular-season game, meaning that the game will not count toward a team’s regular-season record, and a player’s or team’s performance will not count toward regular-season statistics. 

In each conference, Quarterfinal games will be hosted by the two teams with the best record in Group Play games, and the team with the best record in Group Play games will host the wild card team. In the event two or more teams are tied for the higher seed in a conference, the tie among the teams will be broken following the same tiebreaker protocol as described above. 

During the Knockout Rounds on days when Emirates NBA Cup games are not scheduled (Dec. 12-13 and Dec. 15-16), the 22 teams that do not qualify for the Knockout Rounds will each play two regular-season games. 

A formulaic approach will determine the matchups for these games using the Group Play standings in each conference (5th-15th). Two of the 22 games will be scheduled cross-conference since there will be an odd number of teams in each conference that do not advance to the Quarterfinals. These cross-conference games will be scheduled between bottom- finishing teams in the Group Play stage subject to travel constraints, and no team will play more than one of its two games cross-conference. The other 20 games will be scheduled within conference featuring teams that are otherwise scheduled to play each other three times over the course of the season wherever possible. 

The losing teams from the Quarterfinals in each conference will play each other in a regular-season game on Dec. 12, 13, 15 or 16.”