In-season tournament explainer with NBA Cup games starting Tuesday

NBA Cup games tip off starting Tuesday night across the league, making it a perfect time for a quick refresher on how the in-season tournament works.

Now in its second year, the tournament consists of two stages: group play and knockout rounds.

Each team was randomly drawn into a group within their conference for the group play stage.

The Minnesota Timberwolves are in “West A” with the Los Angeles Clippers, Sacramento Kings, Houston Rockets and Portland Trail Blazers; the Oklahoma City Thunder are in “West B” with the Los Angeles Lakers, Phoenix Suns, Utah Jazz and San Antonio Spurs; the Denver Nuggets, Dallas Mavericks, Golden State Warriors, Memphis Grizzlies and New Orleans Pelicans are in “West C.”

In the East, the New York Knicks, Orlando Magic, Philadelphia 76ers, Brooklyn Nets and Charlotte Hornets are in “East A;” in “East B” are the Milwaukee Bucks, Miami Heat, Indiana Pacers, Toronto Raptors and Detroit Pistons; that leaves the Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers, Chicago Bulls, Atlanta Hawks and Washington Wizards in “East C.”

Each team will play every other team in its group once between now and Dec. 3, and the team with the best record from each group — plus the top second-place team with the best group play record in each conference — will advance to the knockout rounds. If there is a tie for the top second-place team in group play, point differential, then total points scored in group play serve as the tiebreaker.

The knockout rounds are single-elimination, with the quarterfinals on Dec. 10-11, and the semifinals and championship game on Dec. 14 and 17.

All group play games count as regular-season games

Every player on the team that wins the NBA Cup will get $500,00. Those on the runner-up will reportedly each get $200,000, with semifinalists getting $100,000 and $50,000 for quarterfinalists. Teams that don’t make it out of group play don’t get any of the NBA Cup prize pool.