NBA in-season tournament: Updated group stage scenarios for Celtics originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The Boston Celtics have suffered their first-ever defeat in the NBA’s in-season tournament.
The C’s lost 113-96 to the Orlando Magic at Amway Center on Friday afternoon.
This result moves the Magic to the top of Group C with a 3-1 record, while the Celtics are now in a second-place tie with the Brooklyn Nets at 2-1. Boston owns the head-to-head tiebreaker over Brooklyn.
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The Celtics still have a chance to clinch a spot in the quarterfinals.
The Magic are done with their in-season tournament group play. So if the Celtics beat the Chicago Bulls in their final group game on Tuesday, Nov. 28, they can tie the Magic atop the group standings. However, if only the Celtics and Magic are 3-1 at the end of group play, the C’s would finish second based on the Magic having the head-to-head tiebreaker. If the Magic, Celtics and Nets all finish at 3-1, then the tiebreaker would be point differential.
Unfortunately for the Celtics, they are not in a good position in point differential. The Magic lead Group C with a plus-22 point differential, followed by the Nets at plus-8 and the Celtics at zero.
If the Celtics do not finish first in the group, they can still get into the quarterfinals as the wild card team. The wild card in each conference is the team with the best record that finishes second in its group. If there are two or more teams tied for the wild card, the tiebreaker is head-to-head, followed by point differential and then total points scored.
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Long story short, the best way for the Celtics to reach the quarterfinals is to beat the Bulls by as many points as possible next Tuesday at TD Garden. Margin of victory matters because point differential is the tiebreaker in a lot of scenarios. A loss to the Bulls would make it quite difficult for the Celtics to advance.
The quarterfinals of the in-season tournament are set for Dec. 4 and Dec. 5. The semifinals are scheduled for Dec. 7 and the championship game is set for Dec. 9. Both the semifinals and final will be played in Las Vegas.