Celtics

The Hawks won the tiebreaker with the Celtics and advanced as East Group C winners.

Shortly after the Celtics beat the Bulls on Friday night, the Atlanta Hawks were the star Trae Young tweeted the words “Thanks Boston” along with a few emojis.

Atlanta had already beaten the Cavaliers on Friday, equaling the Celtics’ 3-1 record in the group stage. Atlanta earned a straight win over Boston in the group stage, giving the Hawks a tiebreaker over the Celtics. It was the Celtics’ only loss in the group stage.

Atlanta advanced to the knockout rounds of the NBA Cup as the winner of East Group C.

The Hawks now have a spot in the NBA Cup quarterfinals. The NBA Cup will become a single-elimination tournament during the knockout stages, with the semifinals and championship taking place in Las Vegas next month.

The Celtics’ NBA Cup hopes are still alive as they could still win the Wild Card spot, which will be decided after Tuesday night’s games.

The two losers of Tuesday night’s Bucks-Pistons and Knicks-Magic matchups will be tied at 3-1, and point-difference tiebreakers could determine who advances.

The Celtics’ point differential is +23, meaning that if one of the losers of Tuesday night’s game ends with a point differential of +24, the Celtics would lose the tiebreaker to that team.

If both teams finish with a difference of +22 points or less, the Celtics would win the tiebreaker early. If a team ties the Celtics at +23, the next tiebreaker, total tournament points, comes into play.

Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla spoke after the game about why he likes the point difference rule.

“I like it because this tournament and the point difference removes any unwritten rules that you should or should not follow,” Mazzulla said. “In a normal situation you wouldn’t do that, but in this situation you can identify a need and make a plan to try to get better in this situation. So the boys did a good job and we tried to increase the points difference as much as possible.”

The NBA Cup quarterfinals begin on December 10th. The Hawks have their spot, and the Celtics need some luck to secure a spot of their own.

Khari A. Thompson

Sports reporter

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Khari Thompson covers professional sports for Boston.com. Before joining the team in 2022, Khari covered college football for The Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss.

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