Anyone else think the 2-3-2 format is a joke?

[Fencer reregistered]

It's maddening how badly quote works right now. Anyhow ...

Luke, I don't understand why you needed to write a program to see that it all comes down to second-order effects.

If we assume that Team A and Team B respectively have probabilities Ah, Ar, Bh=1-Ar, and Br=1-Ah of winning at home or on the road, irrespective of the outcomes of the prior games, then the game order doesn't matter. There simply are 7 independent trials.

Personally, I think that the difficulty of winning three straight (even at home) trumps other considerations, and 2-3-2 is fair to the home-court-advantage team.

[BigHands]

Historically speaking......

The Lakers win home playoff games .744 of the time and the Celtics .733

The Lakers win away playoff games .443 of the time and the Celtics .418

I don’t know the records of teams down 3-2 winning the next 2 games but I expect it is pretty low and with 3 of the first 5 games away the HCA team has an obviously higher likelihood of being down 3-2 than up 3-2.

The home court advantage is a disadvantage until game 7, and there have been only 3 of those.


http://www.nba.com/history/records/allt ... .html#Home

[Cyclical]

I don't mind the 2-3-2 format at all. The only thing that bewilders me is where the 3 day breaks are placed. If the format was created so there less back-and-forth travel time so the teams are more rested than at least place the 3-day breaks in the right place -- before game 3 and before game 6. What's the point of placing them before games 2 and 5 while the teams are IN THE SAME CITY??? Seems a bit moronic to me. Am I alone on this? I truly don't get it.

[Fencer reregistered]

I don't mind the 2-3-2 format at all. The only thing that bewilders me is where the 3 day breaks are placed. If the format was created so there less back-and-forth travel time so the teams are more rested than at least place the 3-day breaks in the right place -- before game 3 and before game 6. What's the point of placing them before games 2 and 5 while the teams are IN THE SAME CITY??? Seems a bit moronic to me. Am I alone on this? I truly don't get it.

I'm with you 100%.

It's obvious that they're trying to avoid Friday and Saturday games for TV viewership reasons. But then they should do what they have to to start the series on a Tuesday.