The Warriors begin play in the NBA's new In-Season Tournament tonight when they take on the Thunder in Oklahoma City. The game is the first of the "Group Play" stage of the league's latest attempted to generate more interest in regular season games. Here are some key facts about the event.
Group play on designated nights leads to Las Vegas in December
The NBA split 30 teams into six groups of five teams each based on last year's place of finish in the standings. The tournament begins with each team facing the other teams in their group for a total of four games (2 home, 2 away) to be played on specific dates throughout November.
The Warriors are in a group with Oklahoma City, Minnesota, San Antonio and Sacramento. Tournament games will be played tonight (November 3) and then on November 10, 14, 17, 21, 24 and 28. Golden State plays at OKC tonight and then at Sacramento on November 28, while hosting Minnesota on November 14 and San Antonio on November 24.
The four group play games will count in the regular season standings and also count in specific group standings which will feed the winner of each group plus one wild-card (the best non group winner) in each conference to an eight team tournament that begins the week of December 4.
Teams that fail to advance to the round of eight or are eliminated in the round of eight will play each other on non-tournament nights (December 6 and December 8). The teams that advance to play in the round of eight (December 4 or December 5) will participate in a basic eight team tournament where those four winners advance to Las Vegas for the semifinals on December 7. All of these games including the semifinal games will count toward the regular season standings.
Finally the winner of each conference will play for the NBA In-Season Tournament crown on December 9 in Las Vegas. That West/East matchup will be an 83rd game for the two teams who participate and not count toward the regular season standings.
Special In-Season Tournament Hardwood
Each team will play on their own customized NBA In-Season Tournament floor. Here's the one the Warriors will see tonight in Oklahoma City.
Coaches and players are trying to say all the right things
Steve Kerr gave his thoughts on the NBA trying to spice things up with an expected caveat when he joined Willard and Dibs.
Draymond Green even sat down and picked winners for each group.
