Thursday, April 22, 2010

When they fall in, they fall in from the roof

The playoffs are not a difficult thing to discern. First team to win 16 games wins, and if the same team beats you four times, you're out. 7 games a series for 4 series. Easy.

Home court advantage for the team with the higher seed (4 of the 7 are played in the higher seed's home court).

Let's assume that all of the teams are of a fairly high caliber (I.E., this year's Western Conference does not contain a playoff team with less than 50 wins).

From the high seed's perspective, the playoffs are like this:

2 at home, 2 away, then 1-1-1 for the last three. (Except in the Finals, where it's 2-3-2, if I'm not mistaken). Assuming each team is good enough to win at home on a consistent basis, every series should go to the higher seed, with every series going about 7 games.

Naturally, this does not happen. The playoffs don't necessarily weed out the best team, because such measures are subjective and nigh impossible to prove with any level of definitiveness. What the playoffs really measure is the ability to win on the road.

Series in which the lower seed advances or the higher seed advances in less than 7 (which is to say, most series) feature at least one road win. They're not easy, but they happen. When a lower seed does this, it's said to nullify the 'home-court advantage.' From there, if they lose every other game on the road and win at home, they win the series. Simple as that. If the high seed does this, they only have to win 3 out of 4 of their home games, taking enormous pressure off of them. The more you win on the road, the less you have to play, the more likely you are to win the series, and it generally fills the winning team with confidence, which is absolutely key to any playoff victory.

So, if playoff dominance is dependent on being able to win away from home, why not host the games at a neutral site? The higher seeds already have an advantage by virtue of being 'better' or at least having more wins. Why crush the underdog further?

To compensate for this, the NBA could incorporate the D-League's playoff method of allowing the highest seeds pick their opponents. I think that the two put together would foster even more intense competition than what is currently on display in the NBA.

Or, it could horrifically cripple lower seeds by forcing teams to deal with matchup problems in a completely foreign basketball arena. That is also possible.

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