The Knicks will be in the national spotlight to start the NBA’s inaugural in-season tournament.
When the event begins Nov. 3, they’ll travel to Milwaukee and face the Bucks for a 7:30 p.m. game on ESPN.
That will mark the opening of East Group B play, while the Nets — in East Group C — commence that same night, facing the Bulls in Chicago at 8 p.m.
The NBA announced the dates for group play games Tuesday, providing some concrete information about its new twist for the 2023-24 season before the rest of the schedule gets revealed Thursday.
There are six groups — three from the Eastern Conference, three from the Western Conference — with five teams that face each other once, and the six winners, in addition to the top two second-place finishers, advance to the quarterfinals.
Since the groups aren’t necessarily based on divisions, the Knicks face the Wizards on Nov. 17 (7 p.m.) before hosting the Heat — in a rematch of the Eastern Conference semifinals — at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 24 (7:30 p.m., ESPN) and the Hornets (7:30 p.m.) on Nov. 28.
The Nets’ tournament will feature some rivalries, as they’ll face the Celtics on Nov. 10 (7:30 p.m., ESPN) and host the Raptors on Nov. 28 (7:30 p.m.) around a game against the Magic on Nov. 14 at Barclays Center (7:30 p.m.).
Each of the games, with the exception of the championship, count toward the regular season’s standings, and for the teams that don’t advance to the quarterfinals, they’ll receive two additional games.
The four teams that lose in the quarterfinals get an additional game outside of the tournament, too.
The semifinalists meet in Las Vegas for a game Dec. 7, and the winners advance to the title game two days later.
Players can earn $500,000 each for winning the title, $250,000 for losing in the championship game, $100,000 for losing in the semifinals and $50,000 for losing in the quarterfinals, the league announced in July.