The2025 NBA Cup (known as theEmirates NBA Cup for sponsorship reasons) is amulti-stagebasketball tournament being held as part of the2025–26 NBA season. It is the third edition of theNBA Cup. All 30 teams participate, each playing four regular season games that count towards the tournament's group stage standings. All games in the knockout round, except for the championship game, also count towards the regular season standings. The tournament's semifinals and championship game will be played atT-Mobile Arena on theLas Vegas Strip. TheMilwaukee Bucks are the defending champions.
In the group stage, each conference is divided into three groups with five teams each, for a total of six groups. Regular season games played on Tuesdays and Fridays between October 12 and November 28 count in the regular season standings and the NBA Cup standings.[1] Each team plays one game against each of the other teams in its group, for a total of four games (two at home and two on the road).[2]
If two or more teams in a group have equal records upon completion of group play, the following tiebreakers apply in this order:[2]
Head-to-head record in the group stage
Point differential in the group stage (excluding overtime)[3]
Total points scored in the group stage (excluding overtime)
Regular season record from the 2024–25 regular season
Random drawing
Note: Overtime scoring does not count towards the point differential and total points tiebreakers in the Emirates NBA Cup. A team's point differential is "0" in Group Play games that went to overtime, and a team's total points scored excludes points scored in overtime.
Each group's winner then advances to the knockout stage, and one wild card from each conference—the group runner-up with the best group stage record. The knockout stage is asingle-elimination tournament. Quarterfinal games will be played in local NBA markets on December 9 and 10, with the teams with the top two group stage records in each conference hosting, and the best team in group-play games will host the wild-card team. The semifinals will be played on December 13, and the championship on December 16. The final two rounds will be played atT-Mobile Arena on theLas Vegas Strip.[2]
Quarterfinal and semifinal games count as regular season games, affecting teams' positions in league standings, but the championship game does not. Statistics from the championship game are also not counted in regular season totals.[2]
To balance the regular season, the teams that did not make the knockout stage play two additional consolation games on December 11 or 12 and 14 or 15, against each other in the same conference, while teams that are eliminated in the quarterfinals play one additional consolation game against each other (from the same conference) on December 14 or 15.[2]
While the knockout stage is played, the 22 teams that do not qualify for the knockout stage each plays two additional regular season games, one home and one away, to complete each team's 82 game regular season schedule. Among these 22 total matchups, 20 are intra-conference games, with an attempt by the league to schedule as many pairs of teams that were originally scheduled to only play each other three times during the regular season. The other two matchups are interconference games, as there is an odd number of teams in each conference (11). These two interconference matchups feature four of the six teams that finished last in their respective group.[2]
Teams were allocated into five pots per conference based on the2024–25 regular season standings. Pot 1 contained the teams with the top three regular season records in each conference, while Pot 2 contained the teams with the fourth- to sixth-best records and so forth, concluding with Pot 5, which contained the teams with the bottom three (thirteenth through fifteenth) records.[2][5]
With games primarily on Friday evenings,Prime Video will air the majority of group play games. A limited number of Tuesday night games will air onNBC and Peacock, while a limited number of Wednesday night games will air on ESPN.[7] All knockout round games, including the final, will air on Prime Video.[8]
