The Clippers’ 2025 NBA Cup Group Play schedule was finalized on Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s full-season schedule announcement.
The Clippers will play at the Lakers on Tuesday, Nov. 25 (8 p.m.; NBC/Peacock). They open play on Oct. 31 against the New Orleans Pelicans at the Intuit Dome (7:30 p.m., Fan Duel Sports Network), play at the Dallas Mavericks on Nov. 14 (5:30 p.m., Amazon Prime Video) and host the Memphis Grizzlies on Nov. 28 (7 p.m., FDSN).
For group play, all 30 teams were randomly drawn into groups of five within their conference based on win-loss records from the 2024-25 regular season.
The Clippers, who were 50-32 last season, are the No. 2 seed in West Group B, while the Lakers (50-32) are the No. 1 seed. The Grizzlies (48-34) are the No. 3 seed, the Mavericks (39-43) are slotted at No. 4 and the Pelicans (21-61) are No. 5.
Group play games will take place on Tuesdays and Fridays from Oct. 31-Nov. 28 before the knockout rounds.
Eight teams will advance to the quarterfinals: the team with the best standing in group play games in each of the six groups and one wild-card team from each conference. The wild card will be the team from each conference with the best record in group play games that finished second in its group (with point differential a tiebreaker).
Teams that do not reach the quarterfinals or semifinals will have two matchups against other teams that also didn’t qualify for the Cup playoffs added to their schedules (Dec. 11-12; Dec. 14-15), pushing the season to the full 82 games.
Quarterfinal and semifinal games will count toward the regular season for the teams involved.
Quarterfinal games, to be played at the arena of the higher-seeded team, will take place Tuesday, Dec. 9, and Wednesday, Dec. 10. The semifinals will be played Saturday, Dec. 13, in Las Vegas and the final – which will not count toward the season record or statistics for either of the clubs involved – is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 16, also in Las Vegas.
Prime Video will stream all seven games in the knockout rounds.
The NBA Cup prize pool will be allocated to the players on the teams that participate in the knockout rounds, with the prize money increasing depending on how far a team progresses in the tournament.
The Clippers did not qualify for the knockout round in either of the first two years, going 1-3 in group play in 2023 and 2-2 in 2024.
The rest of the 2025-26 NBA regular-season schedule will be released Thursday.