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With the 2025-26 NBA season in full swing, the league is already seeing a lot of buzz and excitement for what’s to come throughout the schedule. The first big event is the NBA Cup, a six-week in-season knockout tournament where each team has a chance to win it all.
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What is the NBA In-Season Tournament?
The NBA Cup is an annual competition for all 30 teams matched up in three groups in both east and west conferences (six groups, in total) that runs concurrent with the NBA season. The NBA debuted three seasons ago with the Los Angeles Lakers and Milwaukee Bucks winning in the past. NBA Cup games take place on Fridays, Wednesdays and Tuesdays until the final in Las Vegas, Nevada on Tuesday, Dec. 16. Check out a complete schedule for the NBA Cup here.
Read on for details, plus ways to watch and stream NBA Cup games live online.
How to Watch the 2025 NBA Cup Online
The 2025 NBA Cup begins on Friday, Oct. 31 with group play. Games livestream on Prime Video, ESPN, NBC and Peacock, and NBA League Pass. Basketball fans who don’t have access to live TV through cable, streaming or a digital antenna, can livestream on DirecTV, Sling TV and Hulu + Live TV, as well as Prime Video, ESPN Unlimited, Peacock and NBA League Pass.
Can you watch NBA games live online for free? Yes! Streaming services, like DirecTV and Hulu + Live TV offer free trials for up to five days of use.
Prime Video
Prime Video is the home for the NBA Cup games throughout the tournament. To watch NBA Cup games, you’ll need to be a Prime member. Signing up will grant you access to Prime Video to watch the basketball games as well as a whole suite of benefits, including fast two-day (or less) free shipping; discounts at Whole Foods Market, access to exclusive shopping events — like Prime Day and Black Friday — and other perks.
Meanwhile, Amazon is offering a 30-day free trial for new subscribers who want to try out the service. When the trial is finished, you can either cancel the streaming service altogether, or you can keep watching starting at $8.99 per month. However, if you want all the perks that come with Amazon Prime, it goes for $14.99 per month (or $139 per year) — a nearly 25% savings.
DirecTV
A subscription to DirecTV — which comes with NBC and ESPN for the NBA Cup — gets you access to live TV, local and cable channels, starting at $49.99 for the first month of service ($84.99 per month afterwards). The service even offers a five-day free trial to watch for free, if you sign up now.
You can watch local networks such as ABC, CBS and PBS, while you can also watch many cable networks, including FS1, Lifetime, FX, AMC, A&E, Bravo, BET, MTV, Paramount Network, Cartoon Network, VH1, Fuse, CNN, Food Network, CNBC and many others.
Sling TV
Sling TV offers the Orange + Blue plan, which comes with ESPN and NBC (in some markets). Orange + Blue goes for half off for your first month of service, while it gets you access to all channels offered from Sling in their base plans and the ability to stream on up to three devices at once. Please note: Pricing and channel availability varies from market-to-market.
Hulu + Live TV
For the most content offerings, you can sign up for Hulu + Live TV and get access to the Hulu library in addition to more then 95 live TV channels (including ESPN and NBC). The streaming platform starts at $64.99 per month for the first three months of service ($82.99 per month afterwards).
And, for even more programming, Hulu + Live TV now comes bundled with Disney+ and ESPN Unlimited, which will give you everything within the Hulu library in addition to exclusive content on ESPN for even more sports coverage.
Peacock
The simplest way to get instant access to NBA on NBC is through NBCUniversal’s official streaming platform, Peacock. While there is no free trial for new users, the platform offers cheap plans starting at just $10.99 per month, or you can get an annual plan for $109.99 per year (which gets you 12 months of streaming for the price of 10).
Outside of the 2025 NBA Cup, you can look forward to streaming TV shows, includes Poker Face, The Traitors, Couple to Throuple, The Best Man: The Final Chapters, Love Island, Yellowstone, Suits, The Office, Modern Family and Parks & Recreation.
The streaming service is also the home to exclusive music programming, such as Girl You Know It’s True, Toby Keith: American Icon, When Metal Ruled the World, America’s Got Talent and others.
ESPN Unlimited
ESPN Unlimited is the official streaming platform for ESPN, and a subscription includes instant access to games and more exclusive content for $29.99 per month. You can save almost 17% off by purchasing an annual subscription for $299.99 per year.
Want to watch the NBA Cup internationally? Use ExpressVPN to access various streaming platforms from outside the U.S.
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