What is at stake when the Celtics enter the finals of the NBA Cup group vs. The Bulls originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The Boston Celtics’ game against the Chicago Bulls on Friday isn’t just any late November road game against a sub-500 team.
Celtics at Bulls (8 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Boston) is Boston’s final game in the group stage of the 2024 NBA Cup, the league’s regular season tournament. And the stakes are high for the Celtics, who need a win (and some help) to advance to the quarterfinals.
We’ll get to how the C’s can advance to the knockout stage, but first, check out the updated Group C standings.
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With the Atlanta Hawks beating the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday, the Celtics can’t win Group C. Atlanta beat Boston in their group opener to earn a tiebreaker. The Bulls need a win over the C’s to have a chance to overtake the Hawks.
In addition to the group winners, one “wild card” team from each conference advances to the quarterfinals. The best wild card tiebreaker is point differential, so to earn a wild card, the Celtics would have to have a better point differential than every Eastern Conference team that also went 3-1 but didn’t win their division.
With more group games next Tuesday, the C’s don’t know the exact point difference needed to clinch a wild card spot. So they’ll just have to run up the score on Chicago on Friday night and hope to play the second group games on Friday and Tuesday.
ESPN’s Tim Bontemps outlined several scenarios for how Boston could advance as a wild card; they revolve around the Orlando Magic and their NBA Cup games against the Brooklyn Nets (Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET) and the New York Knicks (Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. ET).
With the Hawks winning and putting themselves in the driver’s seat to win their bracket by beating the Celtics earlier this month, here’s Boston’s path to advancing:
1. Win in Chicago by at least 15 tonight, leaving only Orlando (plus 37 currently through two games) as its…
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) November 29, 2024
NBC Sports Boston coverage of Celtics-Bulls begins at 7:00 PM ET Celtics pregame live.