Some of us have been tossing this around, and I thought it would be cool to see what playoff series schedule people prefer. The sequence used to be 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, with the first two games beginning at the home court of the team with the best record. The newer schedule, (2, 3, 2), favors less travel-stress and jet-lag.
I feel the previous schedule is much more exciting, and much more balanced than the way it is now. I understand the travel costs and concerns, but I still feel the benefits of the old series order outweigh the draw-backs. What do you feel is the best sequence, and why?
I'm with ya Bahku, except that I have to say that I'm at a point
don't understand the travel costs and concerns. These guys aren't barnstorming around the country on commercial buses for games on back to back days. In fact, they
never play on back-to-back days during the playoffs and often have two days between games (though the Finals games are played only on Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, if I recall correctly). These are professional athletes. They fly on chartered jets with plenty of leeway as to when they arrive and depart, and the costs are of no consequence to them. They can live with one day of rest and some traveling between games.
For people making the case that in a time of concern over travel for people in general -- because of the natural issues concerned with oil and fuel-guzzling planes, fine. That's an understandable cause, but I have a hard time believing that this is the NBA's major concern here.
That being said, it should be the competition that is viewed as the primary priority, and as sns0274 articulates, it is critical for the often-pivotal Game 5 to be on the floor of the team that is supposed to have the "built-in advantage," so to speak.
It would be neat if for the Finals every year, the home team was given the choice at the beginning of the series as to which format they would like to use. It would be a nice wrinkle to gaining homecourt for the playoffs and a nice empirical experiment toward finding the preference of those who actually play in and coach these games.
Lock me in for 2-2-1-1-1.
-sw
Edit: Also, since I don't know if it's clarified anywhere on the thread, worth noting that only the Finals utilizes the 2-3-2. The first three rounds of the playoffs are still 2-2-1-1-1.