NBA In-Season Tournament getting positive reviews from Sixers: ‘We want to make it to Vegas’

ATLANTA — When Nick Nurse walked into the 76ers’ coaches’ meeting at the Wells Fargo Center Tuesday afternoon and noticed the two television monitors live-streaming their vibrant red and blue court, his first reaction was “Whoa!”

“It’s very colorful,” Nurse said during his pregame news conference later that evening. “Very bright. … It stands out, that’s for sure.”

So even Nurse has been roped into the hubbub that some of these November NBA games look and feel a little different this season. The special court signals that night’s matchup is part of the league’s first In-Season Tournament for the NBA Cup. The Sixers are halfway through group play — with their third game coming Friday at the Atlanta Hawks — and so far have generally neutral-to-positive reviews about this wrinkle designed to inject external buzz and internal stakes into a segment of the sports calendar typically dominated by football.

“It doesn’t really rattle me or make me feel different,” reserve forward Danuel House Jr. said, “because we’ve still got to play 82 games throughout the course of the season. All they did is just spice it up in the midst of it, before we even get to the end of the season. It’ll be more intense for fans now.”

The Sixers are 1-1 through their first two group play games, beating the Detroit Pistons last Friday but losing to the Indiana Pacers on Tuesday. The 2-0 Pacers lead the Eastern Conference’s Group A entering Friday, followed by the Hawks (1-0), Sixers, Cavaliers (0-1) and Pistons (0-2).

The Sixers’ final group stage game is at home Tuesday against the Cleveland Cavaliers, though those matchups will continue throughout the league through Nov. 28. The single-elimination quarterfinals — featuring the six group winners plus two wild-card teams — begin the first week of December, before the semifinals and finals are played in Las Vegas on Dec. 7 and 9, respectively.

These group play games still count toward the regular-season standings, creating natural motivation for teams. But there is also a $500,000 cash prize for every player on the winning team — plus $200,000 for players that lose in the championship game, $100,000 for players that lose in the semifinals, and $50,000 for the players that lose in the quarterfinals — a financial incentive Milwaukee Bucks superstar Damian Lillard recently noted is significant for players on minimum and two-way contracts. Another perk is the trip to Las Vegas, which Sixers wing Kelly Oubre Jr. highlighted before being injured in an alleged hit-and-run last weekend.

“I know for a fact that we want to make it to Vegas,” Oubre said. “The championship game is on my birthday, so I want to make it to Vegas for my birthday.”

» READ MORE: Nick Nurse supports Kelly Oubre Jr. as questions swirl around hit-and-run incident: ‘I’m going to believe him at his word’

Nurse also has a particular affinity for this style of competition because of his background coaching overseas, where these tournaments are “part of the fabric.” He recently recalled his time in England, when his team was simultaneously playing in the British Basketball League, the Euroleague, the Northern European Basketball League, and a Cup tournament. One week included back-to-back-to-back games played in Lithuania, Germany, and the Netherlands, Nurse said, forcing him into a substitution pattern that resembled hockey line changes.

“We literally had, in our locker room, our standings in all these leagues,” Nurse said. “Because you’d have a week of four different competitions [and you’re trying] kind of keep them straight.”

Some Sixers players, however, have learned the In-Season Tournament’s rules on the fly. Reserve wing Robert Covington recalled recently pulling up the NBA app, and realizing that point differential in the group play games are a tiebreaker to determine who moves on to the knockout rounds. Reigning MVP Joel Embiid, a devoted soccer fan whose tournaments were another inspiration for the NBA Cup, knew about that wrinkle when he let a three-pointer fly just before the final buzzer in last week’s win in Detroit.

“The only thing I noticed was people trying to fight me because they don’t know the rules,” Embiid said after the game. “When it comes to the tournament, points matter. I wish that shot would have counted.”

» READ MORE: Wing rotation remains Sixers’ biggest rotational puzzle

When asked Tuesday if the team stakes should be even higher — such as awarding a playoff berth to the tournament winner — Nurse acknowledged “that thought never even entered my mind” while pondering in the moment. But he did say Tuesday’s game against the Pacers, which the Sixers eventually dropped, 132-126, “[carried] a lot more weight” for pool positioning — even with a marquee (but non-tournament) rematch against the rival Boston Celtics looming the following night.

And if the Sixers need a reminder that Friday’s game in Atlanta also comes with those same incentives, they just need to look down at the very colorful court.

“If you don’t pay attention, you may step out of bounds,” House said.

Indiana Pacers: 2-0

Atlanta Hawks: 1-0

Philadelphia 76ers: 1-1

Cleveland Cavaliers: 0-1

Detroit Pistons: 0-2

Friday: Sixers at Hawks; Pistons at Cavaliers

Tuesday: Cavaliers at Sixers; Pacers at Hawks

Friday, Nov. 24: Pistons at Pacers

Tuesday, Nov. 28: Hawks at Cavaliers