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2025 Emirates NBA Cup play tips off this week for the Detroit Pistons.
Their first of four “in-season tournament” games will take place on Friday, Nov. 7, when they fly to New York to face the Nets. Here’s what to know about the multi-round tournament, which is now in its third season.
How does 2025 NBA Cup work?
The tournament, taking its lead from European-style brackets, consists of two stages — group play and the knockout rounds. In July, teams were randomly divided into six groups of five, three for each conference. The Pistons are in “East Group B” with the Boston Celtics, Orlando Magic, Brooklyn Nets and Philadelphia 76ers. They will face the Nets and Celtics on the road, and the Sixers and Magic at Little Caesars Arena.
From Oct. 31-Nov. 28, every team in each group will play each other once on “Cup Nights,” which will determine seeding. The top team in each group will make up six of the eight teams in the knockout rounds, with the remaining two “wild card” teams in the knockout rounds coming from the top second-place finisher in each conference (with a series of tiebreakers in case two or more teams have the same record). The knockout rounds feature single-elimination matchups: the quarterfinals on Dec. 9 and 10 at the higher seed’s home, and then two rounds in Las Vegas, with the semifinals Dec. 13 and the championship Dec. 16.
Pistons NBA Cup schedule
The Pistons’ NBA Cup games are:
- Friday, Nov. 7: at Nets
- Friday, Nov. 14: vs. Sixers.
- Wednesday, Nov. 26: at Celtics.
- Friday, Nov. 28: vs. Magic.
What’s up with the Little Caesars Arena court?
As part of the tournament, each team will once again sport a special home court, designed by artist Victor Solomon and featuring, according to a release from the NBA, “fully-painted gradient designs” and “personalized overlays for each team.”
The Pistons’ new court is below:
One oddity: The Pistons’ court appears to be the only design, as released by the league, that doesn’t have the team’s home arena on it. Instead, the court features the logo for Platinum Equity, the private equity firm run by Pistons owner Tom Gores.
What happens to the teams that don’t advance?
The 22 teams that fail to qualify for the quarterfinals will each play two freshly scheduled regular-season games, with the first taking place on Dec. 11-12 and the second on Dec. 14-15. At the end of the tournament, a media panel will vote for the NBA Cup MVP and an All-Tournament team.
The four losing teams in the quarterfinals in each conference will play each other in a regular-season game on one of those four days.
How did the Pistons do last year?
They went 3-1 in group play with wins over the Miami Heat, Toronto Raptors and Indiana Pacers and a loss to the Milwaukee Bucks. They fell short of the knockout round.
The Bucks went on to defeat the Oklahoma City Thunder in the championship game.
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Contact Omari Sankofa II at osankofa@freepress.com. Follow him on X @omarisankofa.
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