What Celtics’ big win over Cavs meant for Boston’s NBA Cup chances

Tuesday’s thrilling win over the Cavaliers kept the Celtics in contention for the 2024 NBA Cup.

The 120-117 victory at TD Garden improved Boston’s record to 1-1 in NBA Cup group play. It sits second in the Eastern Conference’s Group C, behind 2-0 Atlanta and ahead of 1-1 Cleveland thanks to a head-to-head tiebreaker. Washington and Chicago round out the group at 0-1.

The three group winners and top second-place finisher from each conference qualify for the win-or-go-home quarterfinals.

“Even though it’s a November game, this was an NBA Cup game,” Celtics big man Al Horford said. “We squandered one away last week against Atlanta, and (we wanted to) find a way to get this win and try to stay relevant in that. It was important. I think it’s a good thing that this early in the season, you’re playing meaningful games like that.”

How can the Celtics advance? The simplest path would be to win their two remaining Cup games (at Washington this Friday; at Chicago next Friday) and have the Hawks, who opened Cup play with a 117-116 win in Boston, lose both one of theirs (at Chicago; vs. Cleveland). In that scenario, the Celtics would finish atop Group C and guarantee themselves a spot in the knockouts.

If Atlanta wins one or both of its remaining games, then Boston would need to worry about point differential, which is the second tiebreaker behind head-to-head. The Celtics currently are at plus-2 in NBA Cup play, with the Hawks at plus-13 and the Cavs at plus-15.

The Celtics will have prime opportunities to pad that number over their final two contests, as they’ll be heavily favored over both the Wizards (overall record: 2-11) and Bulls (6-9). It would behoove them to win those games by as many points as possible, even if it means keeping their foot on the gas late in a blowout. Boston already routed Washington by 20 in a non-Cup game back on Oct. 24.

In last year’s In-Season Tournament (as the NBA Cup was known at the time), the Celtics needed to beat the Bulls by more than 22 points in their final group game to break a three-way tie with Orlando and Brooklyn. Head coach Joe Mazzulla reinserted his starters in the fourth quarter and repeatedly fouled poor free-throw shooter Andre Drummond, and Boston won by 27.

“I apologized to Andre Drummond for doing that,” Mazzulla said at the time, “but it gave us the best chance considering the circumstances we were in.”

Both wild-card teams that advanced to the quarterfinals last season had 3-1 records in group play and point differentials of plus-34 or higher.

Losing to either Washington or Chicago likely would eliminate the Celtics from NBA Cup contention. Players on all teams that reach the knockout rounds receive escalating bonuses: $50,000 for the losing quarterfinalists, $100,000 for the losing semifinalists, $200,000 for the runners-up and $500,000 for the NBA Cup champions.