Predictions for NBA's 1st-Ever In-Season Tournament
The NBA's inaugural In-Season Tournament kicks off on Nov. 3, and there's quietly a lot riding on it.
Aside from the $500,000 going to each player on the last team standing, which will hopefully motivate all parties involved, there's also the small matter of increasing fan interest during what's otherwise a relatively dead portion of the schedule. In an ideal world, the In-Season Tournament will put to rest the idea that the NBA calendar really starts on Christmas.
The basics, in case you've forgotten: All 30 teams will be split into six groups of five. The team that emerges from its group-play bracket with the best record advances to the knockout rounds, accompanied by one wild card from each conference. The early stages of the tourney will be superimposed over the normal schedule and played in local markets. The courts will be different, though!
The stakes elevate when the show moves to Las Vegas for the semifinals and finals.
Will non-contending upstarts be motivated by the extra cash and the chance to stick it to the league's powerhouses? Or will the conventional top-flight threats prove they're just as dominant in November and December as most expect them to be in June?
There's only one way to find out. Prediction time!
Group Play: Eastern Conference
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For those who've forgotten, the tournament features three groups of five teams in each conference. The Eastern Conference includes the following three groups:
Group A: Atlanta Hawks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers, Philadelphia 76ers
Group B: Charlotte Hornets, Miami Heat, Milwaukee Bucks, New York Knicks, Washington Wizards
Group C: Boston Celtics, Brooklyn Nets, Chicago Bulls, Orlando Magic, Toronto Raptors
Advancing is simple. Amass the best record in games against teams in your group, and you move on to the knockout round. Each conference will also send one wild-card team (best record without winning its group) into the knockout stage.
The Sixers have reigning MVP Joel Embiid, a matchup nightmare for the rest of the teams in their group (and the league at large), but it's hard to be sure what the rest of the rotation will look like in the wake of the James Harden trade. Philadelphia probably has the highest ceiling in Group A, but its combustion potential—regardless of what happens on the Harden front—makes it a risky option. That's why we're tabbing the Cavaliers to emerge here. They've had health issues early, with Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell and Jarrett Allen all missing time in the season's first week. But this group won 51 games last year and added Max Strus' spacing to a first unit that badly needed it.
In Group B, we can safely rule out the relatively talent-poor Hornets and rebuilding Wizards. After that, certainty is hard to come by. No one should ever feel comfortable betting against the pathologically competitive Heat, who'll take every game—tournament or otherwise—seriously. But that's what we have to do in selecting the Milwaukee Bucks over Miami and the Knicks, who won one more playoff series than the Bucks did last spring.
Damian Lillard needed exactly one regular-season game to prove he's the closer Milwaukee needs. His presence elevates the Bucks as title contenders and, by definition, in-season tourney threats.
Finally, the Boston Celtics have the easiest path out of group play. Neither the Raptors nor the Nets made an early statement announcing they're better than play-in chasers, so the contending Celtics figure to cruise in Group C.
Projected Winners: Cleveland Cavaliers, Milwaukee Bucks, Boston Celtics, New York Knicks (wild card).
Group Play: Western Conference
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Group A: Los Angeles Lakers, Memphis Grizzlies, Phoenix Suns, Portland Trail Blazers, Utah Jazz
Group B: Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets, LA Clippers, New Orleans Pelicans
Group C: Golden State Warriors, Minnesota Timberwolves, Oklahoma City Thunder, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs
Steven Adams' season-ending knee injury and Ja Morant's 25-game suspension mean the Grizzlies will play their tournament games without two pillars of their offense. They won't be able to compete with the Lakers and Suns if they can't score, even if their Jaren Jackson Jr.-led defense figures to be potent.
With apologies to the only assumed tanker in the group, the Blazers, and the several-steps-away Jazz, Group A will come down to the Lakers and Suns. Phoenix's star have surprisingly missed more games than Los Angeles' stars to this point in the season, a reminder that the determining factor for both of these contenders will be health. Let's hesitantly assume Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal will hold up better than LeBron James and Anthony Davis in picking the Suns to win this group.
Denver will face threats in Group B from everyone but the young Rockets, though injuries should be factors for the Pelicans and Clippers if history is any guide. Good luck guessing what Harden's arrival will mean for the Clips, who'll have to adjust to the ball-dominant lead guard on the fly.
Dallas' offense will be a threat to outscore any opponent on any night with Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving attacking in tandem, but we can't overthink this group. The Nuggets have the best player in the world in Nikola Jokić, whom no defense has solved, and a title-tested supporting cast.
Group C is loaded with top-end talent of all stripes. San Antonio has ascendent superhuman Victor Wembanyama, and OKC features a gaggle of rising stars led by the seemingly unguardable All-NBA scorer Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. The Wolves' only issue is lack of reps with its full core on the court, but by the time group play is done, we might be talking about how well Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert are working together in support of Anthony Edwards.
Golden State and Sacramento remain the prime threats here, with the former toting championship experience in spades. That said, the driven Kings figure to take the in-season tournament as seriously as anyone in the league as they strive to prove last year's run was real. De'Aaron Fox's ankle injury looms large, but we're predicting he'll be fit enough to get the Kings past this stage.
The Warriors are older and might not mash the pedal all the way down in the interest of preserving vets for the postseason, but they're advancing on the strength of their remarkably effective bench.
Predicted Winners: Phoenix Suns, Denver Nuggets, Sacramento Kings, Golden State Warriors (wild card)
Knockout Round: Quarterfinals
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Just like that, we've trimmed the field from 30 teams to eight as we begin the knockout stage. These four games will be single-elimination affairs that still fall within the teams' regular schedules. Though the losers here won't advance to Las Vegas for the semifinals, players on teams that reach this stage and lose still get $50,000.
East: Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks
East: Milwaukee Bucks vs. Cleveland Cavaliers
West: Denver Nuggets vs. Golden State Warriors
West: Phoenix Suns vs. Sacramento Kings
The Knicks have laid a couple of offensive eggs in the early going, with a particularly rough 87.9 offensive rating in a nine-point loss to the Pelicans on Oct. 28 standing out as a low point. Scoring struggles should cause concern for anyone that looked askance at last year's No. 2 offensive rating (with the No. 20 effective field-goal percentage). If New York isn't dominant on the offensive glass, and if it isn't canning second-chance looks from deep, it's prone to clunkers.
That's a recipe for disaster against a Celtics team that deploys loads of shutdown defenders on the perimeter, backed by Kristaps Porzingis' impressive rim protection on the back line. The Knicks will bring the effort and energy, but Derrick White and Jrue Holiday can stymie their already iffy offensive attack.
Even if the Cavs are fully healthy by the time they reach this stage, they're going to have a hard time containing Damian Lillard in the pick-and-roll with two small guards at the point of attack. If the Bucks are diligent about forcing Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland into actions that involve Dame and Giannis Antetokounmpo up top, Cleveland will be scrambling to help all night.
Add to that the struggles Evan Mobley had finishing against size and passing out of the short roll in last year's playoffs, issues Brook Lopez and Giannis could raise just as the Knicks did, and Cleveland seems a bit overmatched.
In the West, Golden State's run ends early as Jokić presents the four-time champs with problems they can't solve. There aren't many teams whose size will expose a smallish Warriors front line, as this group has spent a decade swarming and doubling to compensate for that deficiency with great results. But Jokić is a different challenge altogether. The 2023 title-winners will send the 2022 champs packing.
Lastly, the hungry Kings are a persuasive upset pick—if it's even fair to choose favorites at this early juncture. Sacramento dropped its first home contest of the season to the Warriors and saw De'Aaron Fox go down with a nasty sprained ankle in an overtime win against the Lakers on Oct. 29, which makes it seem somewhat vulnerable.
That said, this is a game the Kings should care about more than the Suns, who've yet to get all three of their stars on the floor together. Phoenix figures to slow roll these contests in the interest of peaking in April.
Projected Winners: Boston Celtics, Milwaukee Bucks, Denver Nuggets, Sacramento Kings
Knockout Round: Semifinals
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At least in terms of the early rounds, much of the In-Season Tournament's appeal is tied to its convenience. The games are on the schedule anyway, and there's no extra travel required.
That changes now, but don't expect the teams that advance this far to complain.
For starters, these games will take place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and should be marked by something akin to a playoff atmosphere. If that weren't enough, players who reach this round will each get at least $100,000 just for showing up. Advance to the Finals, and the prize climbs to $200,000. Win the whole thing, and you're $500,000 richer—no small thing to players involved on rookie-scale or minimum deals.
East: Boston Celtics vs. Milwaukee Bucks
West: Denver Nuggets vs. Sacramento Kings
The Bucks are short on proven wing defenders and have to find somewhere to hide Lillard, two key pressure points the Celtics should be able to exploit. Maybe Khris Middleton will be off his minutes limit by the time these teams meet, and perhaps Jae Crowder's experience will make him a viable option against Jayson Tatum. But Malik Beasley might be totally unplayable, and Milwaukee's overall lack of versatile stoppers should loom large.
Boston can send White and Holiday at Lillard, with the latter perhaps especially motivated to stick it to the team that traded him a couple of years after he helped earn it a championship.
The Celtics can always go cold from deep, and we've seen Giannis take them down on his own before. But Boston seems to have answers for what the Bucks like to do on offense, and the reverse just isn't true.
Denver remains the one team in either conference that doesn't appear to have an obvious weak point. You can harbor some skepticism about their defense, but the Nuggets have proved their ability to ratchet up the intensity in fourth quarters. We should trust them to be ready when the stakes rise.
On the other side, the Kings still come with massive questions about their stopping power. The personnel is largely unchanged after last season's No. 25 finish in defensive efficiency, and it's impossible to imagine the combination of JaVale McGee and Domantas Sabonis slowing Jokić down.
Both of these teams have terrific chemistry and dynamic offenses, but Sacramento has to prove it can get stops before we'd even consider picking it over the defending champs in a do-or-die scenario.
Projected Winners: Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets
Championship Round: Boston Celtics vs. Denver Nuggets
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NBA Finals preview, anyone?
It may not be the ultimate goal of the In-Season Tournament to add a little extra juice to a potential Finals meeting, but it's never a bad thing if the best teams in each conference trade a few early-season shots.
That's what we'll have on Dec. 9 when Boston and Denver clash with a half-million dollars per player riding on the result. Sure, the losers also collect $200,000. But pride and a mental advantage for a potential meeting in June should be incentive enough to get these teams' best efforts.
It's worth mentioning that the financial incentives might have greater motivational appeal to younger teams, and that it's fair to imagine those squads punching above their weight. But championship talent is championship talent, and unless Boston and Denver liberally rest their best players, it feels like a mistake to pick upstarts to advance ahead of either of them.
The matchups will be fascinating, as Boston must decide whether to station Porziņģis on a forward so he can stay out of pick-and-roll actions and protect the rim as a rover. Aaron Gordon might be the likeliest "hiding spot" if the Celtics take that approach. Of course, Gordon is fully capable of running on-ball actions, which means the Celtics can't shield KP at all.
Jokić will have the bulk and physicality advantages against anyone Boston sends at him, and everyone should understand that doubling the best passing big man in history is a nonstarter. The Celtics will mix and match coverages, and the White-Holiday combo gives them a puncher's chance to slow down the Jokić-Murray two-man game. But Denver's offense is malleable enough to generate good shots against tactics of all kinds.
The most glaring difference in these' teams statistical profiles will arise when Denver is on D. Even if we assume defense-first reserves Christian Braun and Peyton Watson will increase the Nuggets' stopping power, we're still talking about a defense that ranked 17th during the 2022-23 regular season. Boston, which checked in at No. 3 on D last year, might actually be even better than that now.
But! Denver was the fifth-best playoff defense and ranked 10th (Boston was sixth) in regular season fourth-quarter defensive rating last year. The Nuggets can clamp down when it counts.
The question that decides this is a simple one: Do you believe anyone, even a potentially fearsome Boston squad, can keep Jokić and the Nuggets from reliably creating high-percentage shots? Here's hoping we get seven Finals games to test that theory, and that this meeting is just a table-setter.
Projected Winner: Denver Nuggets
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Salary info via Spotrac. Accurate through Nov. 1.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@gt_hughes), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
