NBA changes playoff seeding (slightly)

[simonsays]

TSN...


NEW YORK (Ticker) - After the San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks met in the playoffs a round earlier than they deserved, the NBA decided to do something about it.
The NBA Board of Governors on Wednesday approved several rule changes for the 2006-07 season, including an alteration of its playoff seeding.

http://www.tsn.ca/nba/news_story/?ID=173089&hubname=

If this were applied to the NHL last year we would have played San Jose in the first round while Nashville would have taken on the Ducks, and in the east it would have been Buf-NYR and NJ-Phi. An interesting idea, I hope it works out for the NBA.

[octothorp]

Interesting change... Not sure whether or not I like it. Basically the teams ranked two and three lose out.

I do really like the move to reduce the timeouts, but it doesn't go nearly far enough. Worst thing with basketball right now is the number of timeouts late in games. My ideal solution: after a team calls a timeout, they cannot call another timeout until a full minute has elapsed on the game clock. The purpose of timeouts should be to rest players and discuss strategy, not to advance the ball up to midcourt.

[fredr123]

Instead of having three minute-long timeouts in overtime, squads will have two 60-minute stoppages and a 20-second one, and they will no longer be permitted to carry over a 20-second timeout into overtime.

I'm sure that's just a typo but sometimes it seems like the timeouts are that long.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by octothorp

Interesting change... Not sure whether or not I like it. Basically the teams ranked two and three lose out.

Why is that? They still get home court in the first round.

My biggest beef with playoff setups that divide by conference/division is you often get the best series earlier in the playoffs, and the 2 teams at the end are the 2 best remaining teams, but the best in one conference vs the best in the other. I realize this doesn't correct the Finals issue, but at least it goes some way to help try and make the better series occur later, and adds more importance to the regular season (so a team that sews up it's division still has a reason to play hard)

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by octothorp

Interesting change... Not sure whether or not I like it. Basically the teams ranked two and three lose out.

I do really like the move to reduce the timeouts, but it doesn't go nearly far enough. Worst thing with basketball right now is the number of timeouts late in games. My ideal solution: after a team calls a timeout, they cannot call another timeout until a full minute has elapsed on the game clock. The purpose of timeouts should be to rest players and discuss strategy, not to advance the ball up to midcourt.

Its basically for Dallas/San Antonio's sake.

Last year, the 2 best teams in the league had to play eachother in the 2nd round, instead of the conference finals.