Emirates NBA Cup 2026 East Group C: Schedule, Teams and Winner Pick

On November 6, Trae Young walks back into Atlanta wearing a Washington Wizards jersey — an odd homecoming, and one that counts in the Emirates NBA Cup standings. That single game captures why East Group C is the hardest group to get a read on: four of its five teams were rebuilt over the summer, and the usual coverage never puts the whole group in one place — the five teams, the 10 games, the standings math, and what it actually takes to reach December.

The group is the Boston Celtics, Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Hornets, Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards — one of the six groups drawn for the 2026 Cup. Four group games await each team — a home-and-away split against each of the other four — between October 30 and November 27. The winner goes through.

The 30-Second Version

The five teams: Boston Celtics, Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Hornets, Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards — drawn from seeding pots 2, 6, 9, 12 and 15.

The dates: October 30 through November 27, 2026, across seven Cup Nights.

Where to watch: nine games on NBA League Pass (check blackout rules in team markets), Celtics at Wizards on November 24 on NBC, and every knockout game on Prime Video. The NBA Cup streaming guide covers every viewing option.

The favorite: Boston — the top seed with the deepest roster, and two straight group-stage exits to avenge.

How teams advance: win the group and you’re in; otherwise you’re scoreboard-watching every other East runner-up for the wild card.

Why This Group Is the Weird One

Most groups have a story. This one rewrote all five over the summer. Boston reloaded around its contender core. Atlanta traded its franchise player. Charlotte ended the LaMelo Ball experiment. Chicago changed the head coach and half the roster. Washington added Trae Young, Anthony Davis and the No. 1 pick in the draft. New faces everywhere, one constant: four games in November decide everything.

That churn is what makes East Group C genuinely unpredictable. Last season’s results barely describe these teams — which means the group is more likely than most to come down to the tiebreaker math rather than a clear favorite running away with it.

The Full Schedule in One Table

All 10 games in order. Times are Eastern and TV listings can shift, so check on game day (how the home-and-away split works); the complete tournament schedule with TV listings covers all six groups.

The other Eastern groups are East Group A and East Group B — the Group B runner-up is the team to watch in the wild-card race — and out West: West Group A, West Group B and West Group C. The nbacuplive.com homepage has every group, the full schedule and the knockout rounds.

Three Nights That Decide It

Ten games, but three nights carry the group. Mark these first; everything else is context.

November 6 — the homecoming (Wizards at Hawks, 7:00 PM ET)

Trae Young returns to Atlanta for the first time as a Wizard, and it’s also Atlanta’s first real look at life after him. If Washington steals this one on the road, the group gets strange immediately — a projected last-place team holding a tiebreaker over a contender.

November 24 — the measuring stick (Celtics at Wizards, 8:00 PM ET, NBC)

Boston gets its hardest road test against the roster with the most new star power; Washington gets to find out whether its new core can hang with a real contender.

November 27 — closing night (Hawks at Celtics, 8:00 PM ET)

The finale in Boston — and the game most likely to decide the group outright. If you’d rather be in the building for it, here is where to buy NBA Cup tickets.

The Tiebreaker Scenario

The knockout rounds take eight teams — every group winner, plus the best runner-up in each conference. Now imagine the plausible mess this group is built for: Boston, Atlanta and Charlotte all finish 3-1. Their mini round-robin is Celtics at Hornets (Nov 6), Hornets at Hawks (Nov 20) and Hawks at Celtics (Nov 27). If each goes 1-1 in those three games, head-to-head settles nothing — and the group comes down to point differential, with overtime scoring stripped out.

In that world, a 20-point win on closing night is worth more than it looks, and running up the score in a decided game stops being bad manners. The league breaks ties in a fixed five-step order — head-to-head, differential, total points, last season’s record, drawing — covered in full on the rules and format page. For this group, the step that matters is the second one: point differential.

And the consolation for the odd team out is real: 3-1 is exactly the kind of record that takes the East wild card — Miami proved that route last year by reaching the quarterfinals as the conference’s best runner-up. At 2-2, a team is almost certainly going home. The practical takeaway for anyone following along: watch the scoring margin column as closely as the win column, because in this group it will probably decide something.

What Each Team Has to Answer

Boston: can the new pieces gel by November 27?

On paper, the Celtics should run away with this group. Jayson Tatum, Derrick White and Payton Pritchard lead a deep roster, and the summer added Paul George, Mike Conley and Mitchell Robinson — three veterans with deep postseason experience. Joe Mazzulla is still in charge. But the Cup has been unkind to Boston: a quarterfinal exit in 2023, then group-stage exits in 2024 and 2025. Talent was never the problem; November focus was — and this group offers no soft landing.

Atlanta: who runs the offense now?

The Hawks were the only other playoff team in this group last season, and then they traded the face of the franchise. The bet now is CJ McCollum running the offense, with Luguentz Dort, Corey Kispert, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Aaron Wiggins reshaping the wings around Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels and Onyeka Okongwu. Quin Snyder is one of the league’s most respected coaches, but he has weeks — not months — to turn a remade roster into a contender. If McCollum runs it smoothly, Atlanta is the group’s second-best team.

Charlotte: is this the best Hornets team in years?

The Hornets finally moved on from the LaMelo Ball era, trading him to Minnesota. Miles Bridges, Josh Green and Tre Mann moved on as well — and the roster looks more balanced for it. Naz Reid, Grayson Allen, Dennis Schröder, Royce O’Neale and Dorian Finney-Smith bring real production, Brandon Miller keeps climbing toward stardom, and Charles Lee is in year three. Last season’s 44-38 record and play-in appearance was progress; November is the chance to prove it wasn’t a fluke. A Miller leap into All-Star territory makes Charlotte dangerous for anyone.

Chicago: what does a Splitter team look like?

Nobody knows — and that’s the point. Billy Donovan stepped down, Tiago Splitter took over for his first full head-coaching job with Taj Gibson and Wes Unseld Jr. on staff, and the roster turned over just as hard: out went Zach LaVine, Coby White and Nikola Vučević; in came Nic Claxton, Norman Powell, Buddy Hield, Jordan Hawkins and rookie Caleb Wilson. After a 31-51 season and a fourth straight year out of the playoffs, expectations are low, which makes Chicago the group’s true unknown. Watch Josh Giddey running the new system from day one.

Washington: is chaos a strategy?

Nobody in this group is more fun to argue about. The Wizards drafted AJ Dybantsa first overall, traded for Trae Young and Anthony Davis, and added Khris Middleton and Deandre Ayton around Alex Sarr and a pile of young talent. Brian Keefe is back for a fourth season. The floor is real — 17-65 was the league’s worst record, and Washington is 1-11 in Cup games under Keefe. But those three on the same roster is genuine star power. They won’t defend much, but in a four-game sprint, chaos counts.

The Night That Decides Everything

Hawks at Celtics, 8:00 PM ET, League Pass. If the group is still alive, it’s a shootout for first place in Boston — the night the tiebreaker scenario either resolves itself or gets truly chaotic.

The pick: Boston wins the group. Deepest roster, top seed, and the finale at home is either the coronation or another November collapse — there isn’t much middle ground with this team in this tournament. Atlanta is the wild-card threat if the remade roster clicks early. Washington is the team that scrambles everyone else’s math: even two wins from the Wizards could flip the differential race on its head.

Beyond the trophy, there’s real money at stake — the NBA Cup prize money breakdown shows what each round is worth. And remember how this tournament has gone before: the Lakers won the first edition in 2023, the Bucks in 2024, the Knicks in 2025. Nobody has ever defended it.

Full Player Directory

Every name from the five official NBA.com rosters, in the order the league lists them. Positions are the official labels — a dash means none was shown. Training-camp rosters can still change before opening night.

Coaches, Assistants and Trainers

Group membership, schedule, rosters, positions and staff were checked against official team pages on nba.com; records, playoff results, transactions and coaching changes come from secondary reporting. Updated October 10, 2026. TV listings can change — confirm on game day.