MIAMI — For the first time since the event started three years ago, the Miami Heat have qualified for the knockout round of the NBA Cup, the league’s in-season tournament.
Having closed pool play with a 3-1 record, the Heat had to wait until Friday’s closing night of the opening round to see what might come next.
That included seeing whether they would advance as a group winner or the Eastern Conference’s sole wild card, with eight teams, four from each conference, moving on to the single-elimination Cup playoffs.
Ultimately, losses by the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Detroit Pistons put the Heat into the Final Four of the Eastern Conference half of the NBA Cup playoff bracket.
The Heat then had to wait out the result of the New York Knicks-Milwaukee Bucks to see if they would enter the knockout round as winner of their pool-play group or as the East’s wildcard.
With the Knicks’ victory over the Bucks, it left them tied with the Heat at 3-1 in pool play in their group, but gave them first place by virtue of their Nov. 14 victory over the Heat at Madison Square Garden,
That means the Heat will open the knockout round on the road against the Orlando Magic, who completed pool play at 4-0, with the conference’s best NBA Cup margin of victory. The Knicks will play at the second-seeded Toronto Raptors.
For the Heat, it means playing in Orlando twice within a week, with the Heat also scheduled to play in Orlando next Friday.
NBA Cup quarterfinals are scheduled for either Dec. 9 or Dec. 10.
The winners of the Heat-Magic and Knicks-Raptors play in the Cup semifinals on Dec. 13 in Las Vegas. The losers of those quarterfinals will then meet in a regular-season game that will be added to the schedule on either Dec 14 or Dec. 15.
As with the Heat’s opening four games in pool play, all games in the NBA Cup also count toward the regular-season standings, with the exception of the Dec. 16 championship game in Las Vegas.
For the Heat, it already means cash in hand,
By advancing to the knockout round, each Heat player under standard contract now receives $53,093.
Should the Heat win their Cup quarterfinal, each player would receive a $106,187 bonus. Players on the losing team in the championship game receive $212,373. Players on the title team receive $530,933 apiece.
Players on two-way contracts receive half those amounts.
None of the bonus money counts against the salary cap or luxury tax.
For the Heat, scheduling now could get a bit complex. Two days after the NBA Cup championship game, the Heat begin a three-game trip Dec. 18 in Brooklyn, followed by a Dec. 19 game in Boston and then a Dec. 20 game in New York.
The Heat are 13-6, in third place in the Eastern Conference standings, completing their four-game homestand after Saturday night’s game against the Pistons with a Monday night game against the Detroit Pistons. They now will get the Pistons after their Friday night home loss to the Magic knocked them out of the NBA Cup knockout round.