The Clippers open this season’s Emirates NBA Cup tournament on Friday, Nov. 15 at the Houston Rockets, the first of four games they will play in the early stages in the second annual in-season tournament.
They follow that with a Friday, Nov. 22 game against the Sacramento Kings at the Intuit Dome, their new arena in Inglewood. The Clippers travel to take on the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday, Nov. 29 in their lone televised NBA Cup game on ESPN.
They close out the Group Play portion of the competition against the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday, Dec. 3 at the Intuit Dome.
The Clippers went 1-3 in NBA Cup play last season.
All 30 teams were randomly drawn into groups of five within their conference based on win-loss records from the 2023-24 regular season. Each team will play four designated Group Play games – one game against each opponent in its group, with two games at home and two on the road.
All Group Play games take place on Tuesdays and Fridays from Nov. 12 through Dec. 3. Quarterfinal games (to be played at the arena of the higher-seeded team) will take place on Tuesday, Dec. 10, and Wednesday, Dec. 11. The winners of those games will advance to the semifinals on Saturday, Dec. 14 in Las Vegas, with the championship game to also be played in Las Vegas on Dec. 17.
Eight teams will advance to the quarterfinals: 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.
The 22 teams that don’t qualify for the quarterfinals will have two regular-season games added to their schedules, played on Dec. 12-13 and Dec. 15-16. Losing teams from the quarterfinals will be matched up in regular-season games between Dec. 12-16.
The rest of the 2024-25 NBA schedule is expected to be released on Thursday.
