Lakers, Celtics, Bucks headline NBA in-season tournament knockout round

LOS ANGELES —LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jayson Tatum are among the stars whose teams remain alive in the NBA’s inaugural in-season tournament.

The eight-team field for the knockout round was finalized Tuesday night, with the Boston Celtics, Indiana Pacers, Milwaukee Bucks and New York Knicks advancing from the Eastern Conference andthe Los Angeles Lakers, New Orleans Pelicans, Phoenix Suns and Sacramento Kings qualifying from the Western Conference.

Those quarterfinalists survived an opening round in which the league’s 30 teams divided into six groups of five. Each team played the other four teams in its group once. The six group winners automatically qualified for the quarterfinals, and the final two spots were filled by a wild card from each conference.

Several teams punched their tickets to the quarterfinals with victories Tuesday: Milwaukee defeated the Miami Heat, 131-124; Boston blew out the Chicago Bulls, 124-97; New York topped the Charlotte Hornets, 115-91; and Sacramento beat the Golden State Warriors, 124-123. The Pacers and the Lakers were the only teams to clinch their spots before Tuesday.

The knockout round will begin next week with single-elimination quarterfinal games hosted by the top teams from the group stage: The Pacers will host the Celtics and the Kings will host the Pelicans on Dec. 4, while the Bucks will host the Knicks and the Lakers will host the Suns on Dec. 5.

The winners of those four games will advance to the tournament semifinals, which will be held at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Dec. 7. The East semifinalists will play the West semifinalists, guaranteeing an East-vs.-West matchup in the Dec. 9 championship game, which will also be held in Las Vegas. Each player on the winning team will earn a $500,000 bonus, and each player on the runner-up will earn $200,000. The NBA also will announce an in-season tournament MVP and an all-tournament team.

The Pacers and Bucks posted 4-0 records to win East Group A and East Group B. The Celtics went 3-1 to win Group C, topping the Orlando Magic (3-1) and Brooklyn Nets (3-1) on a tiebreaker. The Knicks, who went 3-1 to finish second in East Group B, claimed the wild-card spot over the Cleveland Cavaliers (3-1), Magic and Nets thanks to a point-differential tiebreaker.

The Lakers won West Group A with a 4-0 record, the Pelicans won West Group B with a 3-1 record and the Kings went 4-0 to win West Group C. The Suns (3-1) claimed the wild-card spot over the Minnesota Timberwolves (3-1) on a point-differential tiebreaker.

The defending champion Denver Nuggets finished with a 2-2 record in West Group B and were eliminated, while the reigning Eastern Conference champion Heat fell short of the quarterfinals with a 2-2 record in East Group B. The Washington Wizards lost all four of their tournament games and finished in the East Group B basement.

Tuesday’s dramatic results — including nail-biting wins by the Bucks and Kings — lived up to the NBA’s hopes that the in-season tournament would become an early-season “tent pole” event capable of increasing fan interest and television viewership before its annual Christmas showcase and All-Star Weekend in February.

All in-season tournament games, with the exception of the championship game, will count as part of each team’s 82-game regular season schedule. The championship game will be an 83rd game that doesn’t count in the standings. The 22 teams that didn’t advance to the quarterfinals will play standard regular season games Dec. 6 and Dec. 8 to ensure they play a standard 82-game schedule.

To introduce the event, the NBA unveiled bold painted courts that complement each team’s “City Edition” jerseys for use during tournament games. ESPN and TNT will produce collaborative broadcasts from Las Vegas for the semifinals.