League Changing Playoff Rules

[Shaver]

The NBA is changing the way teams are seeded in the postseason, looking to avoid the controversy that surrounded last season’s playoffs.

Starting in the upcoming season, the top four seeds — the three division winners and the second-place team with the best record — will be seeded according to their win-loss total, guaranteeing that the top two teams in each conference can’t meet until the conference finals, the league announced Wednesday.

The NBA had given the top three seeds to division winners regardless of record, meaning a second-place team could not do better than the No. 4 seed, even if it had a better record than a division champion.

That rule came under fire last season when division rivals San Antonio and Dallas were forced to meet in the second round of the Western Conference playoffs, even though the second-place Mavericks had a far better record than division champions Phoenix or Denver.

Dallas knocked off the first-place Spurs in a thrilling matchup of 60-game winners, capturing Game 7 on the road in overtime.

The league’s board of governors also voted to expand the postseason rosters to 15, instead of 13, with 12 players active for each game. That duplicates the rule used in the regular season.

The NBA champion Miami Heat were among those that criticized the policy that forced teams to carry fewer players in the playoffs than during the season.

Also, if a team has two 60-second timeouts left in the final 2 minutes of regulation or in overtime, one will be reduced to a 20-second timeout. Teams will now have two 60-second timeouts and one lasting 20 seconds in overtime, instead of three 1-minute timeouts. Clubs will no longer be permitted to carry over a 20-second timeout from regulation into overtime.

“Our owners are intent on making the playoff seeding more fair for all teams going forward and in quickening the pace of the end of games,” NBA executive vice president Stu Jackson said in a statement. “The board also thought it made sense to allow teams to utilize the same 15-man roster in the playoffs that they use during the regular season.”

[SPTO]

Re: League Changing Playoff Rules

Better late then never re: the playoff seeding.

[dieselboy]

Re: League Changing Playoff Rules

5-5-7-7

[23]

Re: League Changing Playoff Rules

Why did they not leave it alone from the beginning?

1-8
2-7
3-6
4-5

and whoever had the better record from that point gets HCA?

Whats so diffficult about that

[fsquid]

Re: League Changing Playoff Rules

Why did they not leave it alone from the beginning?

1-8
2-7
3-6
4-5

and whoever had the better record from that point gets HCA?

Whats so diffficult about that

b/c if you are going to have division play, you must reward division winners.

[23]

Re: League Changing Playoff Rules

They can do away with that crap

[Sarah]

Re: League Changing Playoff Rules

I don't know, for a long time NBA never have this kind of problems in the past until Stern started favoring the offense. NFL is doing okay with the old method. Stern started fixing things that are not broken and look what he got, an NBA that cannot stand under fire from the media criticism.

[luv_mist]

Re: League Changing Playoff Rules

5-5-7-7

I couldn't stand being caught into baseball so early. I love baseball but not that freaking much. I like it the way it is. It would seem sensible with the way you say, but the games won't be as glorius. The fight and struggling are needed to attract more audience. Why not milk it for all it's worth.......

[Air23]

Re: League Changing Playoff Rules

Why did they not leave it alone from the beginning?

1-8
2-7
3-6
4-5

and whoever had the better record from that point gets HCA?

Whats so diffficult about that

Because that would take common sense, KDRE. And we know the NBA lacks that these days.

[Air23]

Re: League Changing Playoff Rules

b/c if you are going to have division play, you must reward division winners.

Then they should have division playoffs, like the NCAA has conference playoffs.

Which would still be dumb to me. No, the way the playoffs were in the 80's/90's worked. Stern and Co. just can't leave well enough alone.

[zasbury25]

Re: League Changing Playoff Rules

Then they should have division playoffs, like the NCAA has conference playoffs.

Which would still be dumb to me. No, the way the playoffs were in the 80's/90's worked. Stern and Co. just can't leave well enough alone.

I'm confused...since the league went to 16 teams for the playoffs in 83-84, division winners always got the top seeds and HCA throughout the playoffs. And before that, division winners got a first round bye and HCA, even if they didn't have the two top records. This year's seeding (3 divisions, 1st 3 seeds) followed the same criteria as it did back then (2 divisions, 1st 2 seeds). How did the playoff seeds differ in the 80's/90's from this past season, or for that matter, any other time period?

They had this problem in the past, even before Stern, and now that he is trying to aleviate the problem without totally doing away with the divisions, he gets blamed for the problem that he didn't create in the first place.

[PlayaHataSupreme]

Re: League Changing Playoff Rules

They should just make 2 divisions per conference again........... I mean they did just fine before when they had uneven divisions and when one division had 8 teams while the rest had 7............

Throw the Cali teams, Phoenix, Portland and Seattle in a division and throw the rest of the Western teams in the other

On the East, they could put Miami, Orlando, Charlotte, and Philly in an Atlantic division with Washington, NY, NJ, and Boston. The other 7 teams would be the other division.

2 divisions a conference would cut this problem out anyway. Even if, for example, if San Antonio and Dallas had better records than Phoenix in the West, Dallas would still be the 3 seed, and the teams with the two best records could still play in the conference finals. And they could still give Dallas home court if they played Phoenix in the second round.

[Pared]

Re: League Changing Playoff Rules

I couldn't stand being caught into baseball so early. I love baseball but not that freaking much. I like it the way it is. It would seem sensible with the way you say, but the games won't be as glorius. The fight and struggling are needed to attract more audience. Why not milk it for all it's worth.......

Are you kidding? This year the playoffs were great... until the Conference championships... by that time, the playoffs had dragged on for almost 4 weeks... The championship was played almost a month after the playoffs began!

WAAAAY too much time there for the NBA Playoffs...