What’s at stake in the Celtics-Bulls Group C final – NBC Sports Boston

The Boston Celtics’ game against the Chicago Bulls on Friday isn’t just any late November away matchup against a sub-.500 team.

Celtics at Bulls (8 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Boston) marks Boston’s final game in the group stage of the 2024 NBA Cup, the league’s regular-season tournament. And there’s a lot at stake for the Celtics, who need a win (and some help) to advance to the quarterfinals.

We’ll look at how the C’s can advance to the knockout stages, but first let’s take a look at the updated Group C standings.

Since the Atlanta Hawks defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday, the Celtics cannot win Group C. Atlanta defeated Boston in the opening game of the group stage and secured the direct tiebreaker. The Bulls need a win over the C’s to have a chance of overtaking the Hawks.

In addition to the group winners, a “wild card” team from each conference advances to the quarterfinals. The main tiebreaker for wildcards is the points difference. So to get the wild card, the Celtics would have to have a better point differential than any team in the Eastern Conference, which also finished 3-1 but didn’t win its group.

With more group games coming up next Tuesday, the C’s don’t know exactly how many points they need to secure the wildcard spot. So they’ll just have to improve their record against Chicago as much as possible on Friday night and hope for the best from the other group games on Friday and Tuesday.

UPDATE (10:40 p.m. ET): The Celtics defeated the Bulls 138-129 on Friday night, giving them a 3-1 record and a +23 point lead in Group C. Here’s what needs to happen for Boston to clinch the East Wild Card spot:

• The Orlando Magic defeated the New York Knicks in their group play final UND
• The Milwaukee Bucks-Detroit Pistons group game will be decided by seven or more points.

Magic-Knicks and Bucks-Pistons are both scheduled for Tuesday, December 3rd.