The final night of group play for the NBA in-season tournament delivered on drama and stakes, with multiple teams fighting for a spot in the knockout stage and pulling out all the stops to get there.
And that strong desire for teams to make the final eight also ignited a bit of a controversy—with point differential being one of the tiebreakers for group play, teams not only had to win, but in some instances, they had to win by a certain amount.
In layman’s terms, you could call this running up the score. Multiple players and coaches expressed discomfort with the idea, including Jayson Tatum, Donovan Mitchell and Bam Adebayo. The point differential, however, also undoubtedly added an extra layer of intrigue to already compelling games. As people go back and forth about the quality of the NBA regular season, isn’t it good to encourage everyone to play through the final whistle?
