The Lakers’ 2025 NBA Cup Group Play schedule was finalized Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s full-season schedule announcement.
The Lakers will travel to Memphis for a Halloween matchup against the Grizzlies on Friday, Oct. 31 (6:30 p.m. PT; Amazon Prime) and New Orleans for a game against the Pelicans on Friday, Nov. 14 (5 p.m. PT), and host the Clippers on Tuesday, Nov. 25 (8 p.m.; NBC/Peacock) and the Dallas Mavericks on Friday, Nov. 28 (7 p.m.; Amazon Prime Video).
In addition to unveiling the NBA Cup Group Play schedule, the NBA also announced the Lakers will host the Minnesota Timberwolves on Oct. 24 (7 p.m.) in the first Friday night doubleheader on Prime Video. It will be the first matchup between the Lakers and Timberwolves since Minnesota knocked the Lakers out in the first round of the playoffs in five games during the spring. The New York Knicks will host the Boston Celtics in another playoff rematch on Prime Video before the Lakers-Timberwolves matchup.
For NBA Cup 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 Lakers, who were 50-32 last season, are the top seed in West Group B, while the Clippers (50-32) are the No. 2 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 for the 2025 NBA Cup 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 Lakers went undefeated and won the inaugural NBA Cup in 2023 but didn’t qualify for the knockout rounds last season after going 2-2 in Group Play matchups.
The rest of the 2025-26 NBA regular-season schedule will be released Thursday. The Lakers’ nine known regular-season games known so far are:
• Oct. 21: vs. Golden State Warriors (7 p.m.; NBC/Peacock)
• Oct. 24: vs. Minnesota Timberwolves (7 p.m.; Prime Video)
• Oct. 26: at Sacramento Kings
• Oct. 31: at Memphis Grizzlies (6:30 p.m. PT; Prime Video)
• Nov. 14: at New Orleans Pelicans (5 p.m. PT)
• Nov. 25: vs. Clippers (8 p.m.; NBC/Peacock)
• Nov. 28: vs. Dallas Mavericks (7 p.m.; Prime Video)
• Dec. 25: vs. Houston Rockets (5 p.m.; ABC/ESPN)
• Jan. 28: at Cleveland Cavaliers