NBA in-season tournament: What you need to know about the quarterfinal matchups

After a somewhat surprisingly thrilling group stage that left even some of the most alternate-court-hating traditionalists in our midst looking like the Alonzo Mourning GIF, the NBA’s inaugural in-season tournament now moves on to the knockout rounds. Eight teams, four from each conference, will compete in quarterfinal contests on Monday and Tuesday for the right to move on to the semifinals in Las Vegas, where they’ll have the chance to compete for the NBA Cup, for the bragging rights that go with being the first squad ever to win it and, of course, for large stacks of cold, hard cash.

Before our quarterfinal quartet tips off, let’s reset the table and take a fresh look at the lay of the land as we return to our irregularly scheduled tournament, already in progress:

Where we left off

We broke down the frantic final night of group play, with 16 teams scrambling for the final six spots in the knockout round. There was intrigue, excitement and plenty of pedal-to-the-metal point production in pursuit of the sort of elevated point differential that could win you the tiebreaker that meant the difference between winning and losing.

By the end of the night — which concluded with the Golden State Warriors squandering a 24-point lead en route to getting eliminated by the Sacramento Kings — we had our eight. It’s kind of a cosmic gumbo: the NBA’s two most decorated bluebloods alongside three franchises that have never won a title; four top-10 offenses and three top-10 defenses; five members of the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team and eight members of the 2022-23 All-NBA team; and a Zion in a pear tree.

In-season tournament knockout-round standings

Western Conference

1. Los Angeles Lakers (4-0, +74 point differential)
W at Suns, W vs. Grizzlies, W at Trail Blazers, W vs. Jazz

2. Sacramento Kings (4-0, +30)
W vs. Thunder, W at Spurs, W at Timberwolves, W vs. Warriors

3. New Orleans Pelicans (3-1, +33)
L at Rockets, W vs. Mavericks, W vs. Nuggets, W at Clippers

4. Phoenix Suns (3-1, +34)
L vs. Lakers, W at Utah, W vs. Trail Blazers, W at Grizzlies

Eastern Conference

1. Milwaukee Bucks (4-0, +46 point differential)
W vs. Knicks, W at Hornets, W vs. Wizards, W at Heat

2. Indiana Pacers (4-0, +39)
W vs. Cavaliers, W at 76ers, W at Hawks, W vs. Pistons

3. Boston Celtics (3-1, +27)
W vs. Nets, W at Raptors, L at Magic, W vs. Bulls

4. New York Knicks (3-1, +42)
L at Bucks, W at Wizards, W vs. Heat, W vs. Hornets

What to know about the quarterfinal matchups

East No. 3 Boston Celtics at East No. 2 Indiana Pacers, 7:30 p.m. ET Monday (TNT)

The good news for the Pacers, who swept through Group A? They boast the NBA’s most potent offense, helmed by league assists leader Tyrese Haliburton. The 2023 All-Star has launched his playmaking game into the thermosphere with an opening month that has put him on pace to become just the eighth player in NBA history to average more than 25 points and 10 assists per game and has him flirting with entry into the 50/40/90 club to boot.

The bad news for Haliburton and Co. comes on the other end of the court; if the best offense in the NBA belongs to the Pacers, it’s got stiff competition most nights from Whoever is Playing the Pacers. Indiana ranks 29th in defensive efficiency, lacking the point-of-attack stoppers and length on the wing to effectively match up with or limit top opposing scorers. That could prove to be a problem against a Celtics team led by top-10 scorer Jayson Tatum (averaging nearly 28 points per game) and dangerous running buddy Jaylen Brown (whose 24.8 points per game on 43.3% 3-point shooting led Boston in group play).

In fact, it already has been a problem for coach Rick Carlisle’s Pacers this season. Back on Nov. 1, the Celtics gave Indy an awfully rude welcome to TD Garden, shooting 57% from the floor as a team in the process of dropping 155 points on the Pacers’ heads in this season’s most-lopsided victory.

The Celtics don’t prefer a track meet, but with all their talent on the perimeter, they can certainly win one. If the misery-inducing All-Defensive Team backcourt of Jrue Holiday and Derrick White can slow Haliburton, the Pacers will likely need Buddy Hield and Myles Turner to be lights out from deep to trade haymakers with the league’s most complete team.

West No. 3 New Orleans Pelicans at West No. 2 Sacramento Kings, 10 p.m. ET Monday (TNT)

Like former backcourt partner Haliburton, De’Aaron Fox has authored an awfully impressive encore to last season’s All-Star and All-NBA selections. The 25-year-old is playing the best basketball of his career, leading the NBA in points scored off of drives to the basket and scoring the seventh-most points of any player in the group stage — despite missing a game. He’s been one of the most devastating pick-and-roll ball-handlers in the league this season … and he’ll be going up against a Pelicans team that’s been among the NBA’s best at quieting opposing creators in the two-man game, thanks largely to the suffocating brilliance of Herb Jones and Dyson Daniels, who helped limit Fox to just 40% shooting and a 4-of-19 mark from 3-point range across the Kings’ back-to-back losses to New Orleans a couple of weeks ago.

Fox hitting the NOS off the bounce and Zion Williamson looking burstier and burstier with each passing game; Domantas Sabonis and Jonas Valanciunas hoss-fighting for Lithuanian supremacy; New Orleans’ sudden surfeit of playable wings (welcome back, C.J. McCollum and Trey Murphy III!) locking horns with the ever-revving Malik Monk and Kevin Huerter. The records and net ratings aren’t particularly eye-popping, but the ingredients for a barnburner are here. Dear basketball gods: Please be cool for like a second and give this one to us at full strength (or as close to it as possible) and full throttle. It ought to be a hell of a watch.

East No. 4 New York Knicks at East No. 1 Milwaukee Bucks, 7:30 p.m. ET Tuesday (TNT)

The Bucks outlasted the Knicks in their first meeting this season, but Jalen Brunson made his impression felt in the process, torching Milwaukee’s drop pick-and-roll coverage to the tune of a season-high 45 points:

With Brunson firing on all cylinders and Julius Randle joining him — the two-time All-NBA forward is averaging better than 23-10-5 since his frigid first five games — and their collective 3-point shooting rising up near the top of the league, the Knicks’ offense might have what it takes to puncture a Bucks defense that’s been in flux since the start of the season and continues to have more than its fair share of coverage issues as it skulks around the bottom 10 in points allowed per possession.

The million-dollar question, though: How much will that matter if Giannis Antetokounmpo (25.5 points on 61.8% shooting in the group stage) and Damian Lillard (30 points per game on scorching 52/48/97 shooting splits in group play) continue to do what the Bucks put them together to do?

West No. 4 Phoenix Suns at West No. 1 Los Angeles Lakers, 10 p.m. ET Tuesday (TNT)

There are matchups worth thinking about — whether the oft-up-and-down Anthony Davis can impose his offensive will on Jusuf Nurkić and the rest of Phoenix’s front line; whether Davis can smother Devin Booker’s pick-and-roll arsenal as effectively as he did Stephen Curry’s in the 2023 NBA playoffs; whether the presence of Booker, who missed both of the Suns’ early-season losses to L.A., and who has been playing the best basketball of his life over the past few weeks, will be enough to level the playing field.

The real crux of the competition, though? We haven’t seen LeBron James and Kevin Durant tangle in a high-stakes game since the 2018 NBA Finals. Reasonable people can disagree over just how “high stakes” the in-season tournament quarterfinal is, of course. But the bet here is that it’ll mean something to LeBron and KD, and two of the top 10 scorers in NBA history fighting over the same prize seems like a pretty compelling reason to watch to me.

What comes next?

The four winners of Monday’s and Tuesday’s single-elimination quarterfinal games will advance to Las Vegas, where the semifinals will be held Thursday. The championship game for the inaugural NBA Cup will take place Saturday.

That championship game will be the only one in the entire tournament that won’t also count toward participants’ regular-season record and statistics. For those two teams, it will count as Game 83. The four teams that lose in the quarterfinals will each play a regular-season games Friday.

All quarterfinal teams are guaranteed payouts of at least $50,000. To the winners, though, go the greatest spoils — a $500,000 payout for every player and coach on the first team to hoist the NBA Cup.