The Issues With The 2018 NBA Playoffs

I sit here watching  Game Four of the 2018 Western Conference Finals between the Houston Rockets and the Golden State Warriors, unimpressed. So far the series has been anything but competitive. All first three games, of the series, have been blow outs. The closest of these three games was game one in which Golden State beat Houston by 13 points to take away home court from the Rockets. With the Eastern Conference being weaker than in prior years (and that’s saying something), many analysts and pundits figured that the Western Conference Finals would determine the 2018 NBA Champion, as the NBA Finals are predicted to be more of a formality than an actual “Championship Series.” So far that prediction is not producing, and that is costing the NBA. 


The 2018 NBA Playoffs, up to this point, have been noncompetitive and boring. This is a problem considering a sport survives, albeit a professional sport, so long as it draws viewers.  Take the eight first round matchups – only half went to six games or more. What is even more disappointing is that it was the Eastern Conference’s most recognizable teams that were forced to extend their first round series past five games; whereas the more competitive, and as the pundits have suggested, more entertaining West, finished three of their four series’ within five games. 


Logically the first round of any sports playoff would be considered the least entertaining. That is not the case in this year’s NBA. In the second round, no series went more than five games.  Luckily the jury is still out regarding the NBA Conference Finals. It appears that the Eastern Conference Finals will at least go six games.


A counter argument to the above claim is that although the series themselves have been “quick,” the games themselves have been close. This may be true, but there is something to be said for the psychological aspect of one team consistently beating another team in nail biters. In the 2007 World Series an average fan remembers that the Boston Red Sox swept the Colorado Rockies, but they forget the fact that in two of those four games the Rockies only lost by one run. That’s the issue with one team in a series winning a bunch of close games – it’s competitive but not captivating. When Boston went up 3-0 against the 76ers in the second round, no reasonable fan was thinking that the 76ers were going to come back, but rather was wondering if Boston would finish the series in Game 4 or Game 5 (as an aside it doesn’t help that Boston is without its two best players for the entire playoffs). 


Assuming that Cleveland and Golden State make it to the NBA Finals for the fourth time in a row, it doesn’t mean much. The reason for this is because in order for a rivalry to be worthwhile, there needs to be some level of expectation that each side could win. That will not be the case this year, just like it was not the case last year, especially now with Cleveland struggling to defeat a deficient Boston team. 


It should be noted that no matter how bored I might be by the recent NBA playoffs, the rest of the country has been entertained. Since 2015 the NBA Finals have had an average viewership of 20 million and I will most likely continue to be one of them.