It all comes down to tonight.
The NBA Cup Group Stage is entering its final week of games. Teams will play today, Black Friday, and then next Tuesday to decide who will advance to the Knockout Stage and who will fall short. While two Western Conference teams have already punshed their tickets -- the Golden State Warriors and the Houston Rockets -- all four slots are still wide-open in the East.
The Cavaliers play a must-win game on Black Friday
That includes East Group C, where the Cleveland Cavaliers go into a must-win game today at 2:30 PM ET against the Atlanta Hawks -- the same Hawks team that just handed the Cavs their second loss of the season at Rocket Mortgage Field House on Wednesday. The rematch is in Atlanta, putting all the more pressure on the Cavaliers to pull out the win.
They currently sit at 1-1 in the group, which is technically fourth place, but only because they have played just two games, when everyone else in the group has played three. If they beat the Hawks today, they will vault into first place in the group.
Their lone loss thus far was to the Boston Celtics on the road, a three-point defeat that puts a lot of pressure on today. First, the Cavaliers have to beat the Hawks; if they lose, Atlanta will win the group at 3-1 and the Cavs will be functionally eliminated at 2-2 from the Wild Card race (it's theoretically possible to advance as a 2-2 Wild Card team, but it's extremely likely there will be at least one 3-1 second-place team).
If the Cavaliers win, there is still work to be done. To win the group, they will then need the Chicago Bulls to beat the Boston Celtics tonight at 8:00 PM ET. If the Bulls pull off that upset, they will be 3-1 atop the group, and the Celtics will be eliminated at 2-2. That sets up Cleveland, who defeated Chicago already, to advance with a home win over the Washington Wizards on Tuesday.
If the Celtics win tonight, however, they will be 3-1 with the tiebreaker over the Cavaliers. That's where point differential comes into play. The Cavaliers are in a good position at +15 after two games; if they can beat the Hawks by a decent amount and then blow out the Wizards on Tuesday, they will have a strong case in the East Wild Card race. They could then root for the Milwaukee Bucks and Orlando Magic to win their groups, putting the two strongest point differentials through as group winners and leaving a more wide-open field for the Cavaliers to beat out for the Wild Card.
Everything starts with a win this afternoon, however. As you fire off those Black Friday purchases and munch on leftovers, a matinee showdown between Atlanta and Cleveland tips off at 2:30 ET. The Cavaliers will need to find a way to contain Trae Young's passing while knocking down shots of their own; they are favorites to win, but the Hawks got their number once, and the Cavs will be without Dean Wade, Caris LeVert and of course Max Strus.
A loss and it's all over for the Cavaliers; a win keeps them alive in the hunt for the NBA Cup.