I am a VERY casual Blazers fan and rarely pay attention to the NBA as is. But I watch ESPN all the time and keep hearing about the in-season tournament going on. Can someone give me the “… For Dummies” on the tourney? I really just have no idea what it is and what it is for.
The 15 teams in each conference get split into 3 groups, more or less balanced based on the previous year’s conference standings.
Every team plays every other team in their group during the group stage. These count as normal regular season games too.
At the end of the group stage, the winner of each group qualifies for the knock out round, and one more team from each conference too (a wildcard). All based on results in the group stage games only.
From there, the knock out QFs are played on the homecourt of the higher seeds. Single elimination, winners move onto to the SFs and eventually final, all held in Vegas.
The quarter finals and semi finals games count as regular season games too. Only the final doesn’t count as a regular season game.
Before the season every team only has 80 games scheduled. The 22 teams that don’t qualify for the knockouts have 2 games added to their schedule. The 4 teams that reach the quarter finals and lose have 1 game added.