The 2024 Cup Nights, the NBA’s second annual in-season competition, will tip off on Tuesday, Nov. 12 in team markets and culminate with the Semifinals (Saturday, Dec. 14) and Championship (Tuesday, Dec. 17) taking place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The 2024 Cup Nights prize pool will be allocated to the players on the teams that participate in the Knockout Rounds, with allocations increasing depending on how far a team progresses in the tournament.
At the conclusion of the 2024 Cup Nights, a media panel will select the Most Valuable Player of the competition and the All-Tournament Team. Selection will be based on the players’ performance in both Group Play and the Knockout Rounds
The Mavericks went 3-1 against the 2022 NBA champion Warriors last season. P.J. Washington Jr. scored a Mavericks career-high 32 points, including the game-winning basket with 4.5 seconds left, in Dallas’ 108-106 win over Golden State on April 5.
In four games against the Pelicans in 2023-24, the Mavericks went 2-2, splitting two games in both New Orleans and Dallas. Kyrie Irving led Dallas in scoring in all four meetings, averaging a team-high 31.8 ppg against New Orleans last season.
Dallas went 1-2 against the 2023 NBA champion Nuggets in 2023-24, dropping both meetings in Denver. The Mavericks won the final matchup in Dallas 107-105 on March 17, courtesy of a Kyrie Irving left-handed floater at the buzzer.
The road team won all four matchups between Dallas and Memphis in 2023-24. Luka Dončić, who had a 35-point triple-double in the win at Memphis on Oct. 30, averaged a team-high 33.7 ppg against the Grizzlies last season.
2024 Cup Nights is an annual, in season competition for all 30 teams.
Cup Nights provide players and teams with another competition to win, engage fans in a unique way and drive additional interest in the early portion of the regular-season schedule.
Before the Group Play draw, each team was placed into a “pot” based on its record from the prior regular season (2023-24). In each conference, one team from each pot was randomly selected into each of the three groups in that conference. Pot 1 had the teams with the three best prior-season records in a conference, Pot 2 had the teams with the fourth- through sixth-best prior-season records in a conference, and so on through Pot 5.
Eight teams will advance to the Knockout Rounds: the team with the best standing in Group Play games in each of the six groups and one “wild card” team from each conference. The wild card will be the team from each conference with the best record in Group Play games that finished second in its group.
Every team will still play an 82-game regular season. All 2024 Cup Night games will count toward the regular-season standings except the Championship, which will sit outside the regular season.
