Why is point differential so important in the NBA In-Season Tournament?
However, tiebreakers will come into play if two or more teams have the same number of wins. The first tiebreaker is the head-to-head record between the tied teams, and the second tiebreaker is the points differential. There are a few more tiebreakers, but they are not relevant to this context. Some “Cupsplaining” follows During the In-Season Tournament, teams in the same group do not play simultaneously . This means that a team may already know the result of their group before their last group stage game. For example, the Bulls and Raptors play their final group stage game after all other games in their group have finished. This gives a team, let’s call them Team A, an advantage as they would know exactly what they need to do to win their group. Let’s say Team A needs to win their last game to force a 3+ way tie for first and win by 6 or more points. In this case, there could be no clear head-to-head winner as all three teams could be 1-1 against the other two. If it were a two-way tie...