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Denton: MAKING A CASE FOR … Abolishing the 2-3-2 Finals Format

Josh Cohen
Digital News Manager

By John Denton June 18, 2013

ORLANDO – Part of the beauty of sports is that it offers great debate whether we’re sitting courtside, on bar stools, gathered around the water cooler or in cyberspace on a highly contentious message board.

With that thought in mind, we’re introducing a new weekly series here at OrlandoMagic.com, called ``Making a Case For … .’’ We’ll debate some of the hot-button issues in the NBA, give the pros and cons of an argument and take a stance on these subjects.

Today’s topic: Making a Case For … Abolishing the 2-3-2 Finals Format.
It simply defies all sort of logic that the NBA uses the 2-2-1-1-1 format for the first, second and Conference Finals rounds of the playoffs and then shifts to the dramatically different 2-3-2 format for the all-important NBA Finals. This is roughly on par with Major League Baseball ignoring the team with the best record over the 162-game season and instead basing homefield advantage in the World Series off a silly exhibition all-star game. OK, bad example.

The 2-3-2 format was first introduced in The Finals in 1985, about the time that the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics made the championship round their personal playgrounds. Because of the four-hour flights and strictly commercial travel, it made traipsing back and forth across the country five times in a series quite impractical.

Those days, of course, are long gone. Teams now travel on luxurious charter flights that can leave the night after games or the following day if they so choose. Talk to any old-time NBA player or coach and you realize that flying commercial as a professional athlete was a major drain on the body. Those issues simply don’t exist now in modern times.

Sure, there is more international media than ever covering The Finals, but when has a major sporting event ever been planned around the media? Think the NFL would ever consider shortening its marathon halftimes so that newspaper hacks could have more time to make deadline? Think MLB would grant all-you-can-eat buffet access to The Great Unwashed during those four-hour playoff games?

Of course, one hidden reason for the NBA wanting to keep the 2-3-2 format is that the setup tends to favor the underdog. Steal one on the road and then the disadvantaged team has a home set of three games with which to make hay. While that team might not always win the series, they do at least usually extend it out, to say, six or seven games. That, of course, has been known to make TV execs and a certain NBA commissioner smile with glee.

The TV-playoffs marriage usually goes something like this: Four-game sweep = TV/league loses money; Five-game series = TV/league breaks even; Six-game series = TV/league makes money; Seven-game series with a winner-take-all, must-see final game = Everybody cashes in big time.

Tonight (and possibly on Thursday) the Miami Heat will attempt to become just the fourth team ever to win Games 6 and 7 en route to a title. Only the 1988 Lakers, 1994 Houston Rockets and 2010 Lakers have fallen in holes during the middle three road games and rallied at home in Games 6 and 7 to win titles.

The Heat have been on both sides of the 2-3-2 debate, a product of their runs to the last three NBA Finals. The Heat lost the 2010 NBA Finals while possessing homecourt advantage – against the Dallas Mavericks when they dropped Game 6 at home. And they won when they didn’t have homecourt advantage – in 2012 when they won once in Oklahoma City and then swept the middle three games in Miami.

Now, a Heat team that hasn’t lost consecutive games since February, but has yet to win consecutive games in these Finals, must rise up and win two straight home games to capture a second title.

Since the NBA switched to the 2-3-2 format in 1985, the team with homecourt advantage (Games 1, 2, 6 and 7 in their arena) is 20-8. And I still think the Heat are in a not-so-dire position to rally twice at home and win a title. (Still, there are obvious effort flaws with this Heat team in that some nights they play dramatically harder than others).

This series could very well be flip-flopped right now had there been the 2-2-1-1-1 format from the previous rounds. Following their dominating Game 4 win to even the series at 2-all, the Heat would have headed back to Miami for the often-pivotal Game 5 on their homecourt. Had the Heat won that game, San Antonio would have incredibly trailed in a Finals series for the first time in five trips there and the must-win scenarios would have been at the Spurs’ doorstep.

But with the Spurs hosting the middle three games, the Heat were bunkered down in San Antonio nearly as long as Gen. Santa Anna. And after spending six straight days in San Antonio – a gut-busting thought for anyone who has dined along The Riverwalk – the Heat guarded like they wanted out of South Texas more than Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel wants out of College Station.

To his credit, LeBron James said there is no advantage or disadvantage to the 2-3-2 format for either team and that every game should possess a sense of urgency. But if the Heat fall short in these Finals, they could potentially blame the flawed format for robbing them of a Game 5 at home.

It’s time for the NBA to wipe out a format that is reserved for only the most important playoff round of the sport. The 2-3-2 format served its purpose when the Lakers and Celtics were in the Finals seemingly every season and forced everyone to shuttle back and forth across the country. (Let’s leave all of that Boston-to-LA travel now to Doc Rivers and the strange saga going on with the Celtics and Clippers.)

Here’s to hoping that this Finals is the last one with an outdated format. It’s time for the NBA to change back to the format that is used for the rest of the playoffs. This is one of those instances where some uniformity in the playoffs would be a very good thing for the NBA.

Note: The contents of this page have not been reviewed or endorsed by the Orlando Magic. All opinions expressed by John Denton are solely his own and do not reflect the opinions of the Orlando Magic or their Basketball Operations staff, partners or sponsors. His sources are not known to the Magic and he has no special access to information beyond the access and privileges that go along with being an NBA accredited member of the media.

 

 

 

 

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