NBA In-Season Tournament Tiebreakers: How Are Wild Card Teams Determined?
By The Big Lead
Group Play in the NBA In-Season Tournament wraps up on Tuesday night. You can see the standings on the NBA website where it's clear that some teams will move on to the Knockout Round and some will just have to go back to playing boring old regular season games that mean nothing beyond whether they make the playoffs or head to the Draft Lottery.
How are In-Season Tournament Wild Cards determined?
The easiest way to make the Knockout Round is to win your group, but if you didn't go 4-0 like the Los Angeles Lakers or Indiana Pacers, how else can you advance? By earning a Wild Card spot.
The wild cards will be the team from each conference that has the best record in Group Play and finished second in their group. If two or more teams are tied for the wild card they will go to the following tie-breaker(s). Per NBA.com:
- Head-to-head record in the Group Stage;
- Point differential in the Group Stage;
- Total points scored in the Group Stage;
- Regular season record from the 2022-23 NBA regular season; and
- Random drawing (in the unlikely scenario that two or more teams are still tied following the previous tiebreakers).
So if you noticed any teams running up the score during Group Play, its because they had the tie-breakers in mind. Also, it's better to win more games than you lose during the regular season, which seems pretty straightforward.