NBA announces Nuggets schedule for 2024 NBA Cup

While many will point to the shocking blown lead and loss to the lowly San Antonio Spurs in Game 81 as the reason the Denver Nuggets didn’t capture the No. 1 seed in the west and maybe ultimately fell out of the playoffs early, the inaugural In-Season Tournament and its results hurt the team tremendously.

Jamal Murray’s initial injury, which he never got right back to 100% from, was suffered while the team went all out in an NBA Cup game. Then, once it was obvious the team would not go far and they punted on the competition, it resulted in the team facing extremely hot Rockets and Clippers teams who they had already played a combined five times in the previous two weeks. It meant the final two games of the competition and the two games that were on hold with the results of the NBA Cup waiting, resulted in four of the 25 losses in the franchise’s best regular season ever.

In year two of a competition that mattered so little in its debut that the winners, the Los Angeles Lakers, fired their coach after the season, it will be fascinating to see how the Nuggets handle it all. The club has already outright said they won’t go as hard in the regular season after last year’s playoff exit where they had nothing left in the tank. And yet the first four games on the team’s official schedule, all part of the NBA Cup, come against three teams likely to make the playoffs—including last year’s winners of the west and two years back’s second-place finisher in the conference—and a fourth team who won the title three years ago.

Nuggets NBA Cup Schedule

Nov. 15: AT New Orleans
Nov. 19: AT Memphis
Nov. 22: vs Dallas (ESPN)
Dec. 3: vs Golden State (TNT)

Group schedule is set! ☑️#EmiratesNBACup pic.twitter.com/tgwuFuS443

— Denver Nuggets (@nuggets) August 13, 2024

As a reminder from last fall—the FIFA-style Cup has all 30 NBA teams separated by Conference and split up into six different groups for the first portion. Those pool play games will be on Tuesday and Friday nights mostly in November and the eight top performers of each group will then advance to the Knockout Stage. The then single-elimination tournament will conclude in Las Vegas, for the Semi-Finals (Dec. 14th) and Championship game (Dec. 17th.)

Those four games, plus the Christmas Day game are all that we know so far of the Nuggets 2024-25 schedule, which is expected to be out in full sometime this week.