2024 NBA Cup: Everything to know about Celtics’ schedule, court, format

Bright courts and big money. Welcome to the newly rebranded 2024 Emirates NBA Cup.

The Celtics’ Tuesday night matchup with the Atlanta Hawks at TD Garden is the first of four NBA Cup group play games they will play over the next 2 1/2 weeks. Boston will host the Cleveland Cavaliers next Tuesday night, then visit the Washington Wizards next Friday and the Chicago Bulls on Friday, Nov. 29.

The league tweaked some of the rules for this season’s NBA Cup — known last year as the inaugural In-Season Tournament — but the basics remain the same: Each pool-play game counts toward the regular-season standings, and the top eight teams (the six group winners and the top second-place finisher from each conference) advance to the single-elimination knockout rounds.

The quarterfinals are held at home arenas, with the semifinals and finals taking place in Las Vegas on Dec. 14 and 17. The big prize: a $500,000 bonus to each player on the winning team — no small sum, especially for non-superstars. Runner-up gets $200,000 per player, semifinalists $100,000 and quarterfinalists $50,000.

All tournament games again will feature NBA Cup-specific courts — a vibrant green in Boston’s case — but in a change from last year, home teams will wear their standard alternate “Statement” uniforms rather than the “City” unis that rotate each season.

For the Celtics, that’s the black set they’ve worn since 2017, not the new neon-splattered one they’ll officially unveil later this week.

The Celtics won their group last season, though they needed to run up the score against Chicago in their final pool-play game to do so (point differential is the second tiebreaker after head-to-head). They were bounced in the quarterfinals by Indiana, which went on to lose to the Los Angeles Lakers in the championship game.

Teams eliminated before the knockouts will have two additional games scheduled against other eliminated teams (one home, one road). Teams knocked out in the quarterfinals will play one additional game. All of those also will count toward the regular-season standings, as will the semifinals. Only the final is exempt.

This year’s Cup draw was a tricky one for the C’s, as the Cavaliers have been the only other impressive Eastern Conference squad so far this season. Cleveland entered Tuesday with a league-best 12-0 record, with Boston sitting second in the East at 9-2. The Pacers were third at 5-5, and every other team in the conference was below .500.