The Boston Celtics’ NBA Cup hopes are nonetheless alive after Friday evening’s hard-fought victory over the Washington Wizards.

They improved to 2-1 within the group stage with their 108-96 win, which boosted their level differential to +14. Level differential is a tiebreaker within the event together with head-to-head matchups.

Shortly after the C’s triumph, the East Group C-leading Atlanta Hawks dropped to 2-1 with their 136-122 loss to the Chicago Bulls. That provides Boston an opportunity to overhaul Atlanta for the highest spot if it beats Chicago and the Hawks fall to the Cleveland Cavaliers of their last group stage video games subsequent Friday.

If Atlanta defeats Cleveland, it would earn the tiebreaker due to its victory over Boston within the NBA Cup opener. The Celtics can advance to the knockout stage, nevertheless, even when the Hawks win the group.

Along with the six group winners (three within the Jap Convention, three within the Western Convention), there are two “wild playing cards” that advance to the subsequent spherical. These are the groups in every convention with the perfect report in Group Play that did not win their teams. If multiple staff has the identical Group Play report, level differential is used as the highest tiebreaker.

That being the case, we will count on to see head coach Joe Mazzulla attempt to run up the rating on Chicago subsequent Friday. If the Celtics end 3-1 in Group Play, and the Hawks win the group, the C’s would wish to have a greater level differential than each different 3-1 staff within the Jap Convention that did not win its group to advance because the wild card staff.

Boston will take a break from NBA Cup motion with their subsequent two video games coming in opposition to the Minnesota Timberwolves and Los Angeles Clippers at TD Backyard. C’s-Wolves is about for a 3:30 p.m. ET tip-off Sunday on NBC Sports activities Boston.