The 2-3-2 Format
And now a quick break from your regularly-schedule box score analysis (next post should be up tomorrow) for a quick thought inspired by this Tim Donaghy business.
Tim Donaghy’s accusing the NBA of some shady refereeing practices in order to ensure one of its marquee series (Kings-Lakers in 2002) went to a full revenue-boosting 7 games.
But, what if that’s not the only method the NBA is using to elongate series?
Now, don’t get me wrong - there are a lot of great reasons the Finals goes 2-3-2. The media is the main one, since ABC is a bit less agile than TNT and ESPN and needs a lot more to move back and forth between two host cities (actually, I’ve always kind of wondered about that - doesn’t ABC have enough money to have a crew in each city and just fly the sportscasters back and forth? But I digress). It benefits the teams too, given that the Finals are the only playoff series to feature travel that’s clear across the country (since New Orleans and Los Angeles are within walking distance, right?). I’m not implying that what I’m about to say is the primary reason for the 2-3-2 format (although I do question the modern-day value of it - I understand why it was needed in 1984, but now I’m not quite as convinced).
But is an added bonus of the 2-3-2 series that it has a tendency to yield more games?
Think about it - more often than not, the team with home court advantage is considered, on some level, to be better than the away team. It’s obviously not always true, but if you have to make a choice without knowing the teams, you’ll likely choose the team with HCA going into the series - after all, the team with HCA has won over 75% of Finals series (I’ll refer to the teams as Home and Away, but note I’m speaking for the entire series, not just game-by-game).
So, that means it’d theoretically be more likely (in a very general sense) for the Home team to win a game away against the Away team than for the Away team to win a game away against the Home team.
Under either format (2-2-1-1-1 or 2-3-2), that means that it’s more likely for the series to enter Game 5 with the Home team leading 3 games to 1 than for the Away team to be leading 3 games to 1.
Under the 2-2-1-1-1 format, that game happens at the Home team’s arena, meaning the Home team is more likely to win (than they would be on the road) and end the series after 5 games.
But under the 2-3-2 format, that game happens at the Away team’s arena - meaning that the Home team is less likely to win (than if they were playing at home).
Considering again that it’s more likely for the Home team to lead 3 games to 1 than the Away team, it follows the Game 5 is more likely to be an elimination game for the Away team - so putting it at their arena lowers their risk of a Game 5 elimination, and thus increases the chance for a 6+ game series.
I should specify that I, personally, find nothing wrong with this approach if it is, in fact, true - it’s one of those rules that’s decided ahead of time, so it can’t be intended to favor any one particular team. Any team could benefit from it in any given year. But as long as we’re on the topic of the league possibly attempting to elongate series using “un-kosher” methods, is it really that odd to consider they might be doing it by more fair and balanced methods as well?
The logic checks out, but this is a statistical blog, so let’s run the numbers. In this case, however, we can’t. It’s unfeasible to straight-up average the number of games per series before and after the change - while it would give an apparently informative result, it’s likely to be heavily influenced by the increased parity and level of competition in more recent years (which, admittedly, would statistically prove this hypothesis, but it wouldn’t make it true). The alternative would be to count how many Game 5’s happened with one team holding a 3-1 lead and seeing the Road team is more likely to win their Game 5 home game after the switch - but, the sample size is too small to derive anything meaningful from that (only 9 Game 5’s with the home team leading 3-1).
So instead we’re just left with our reasoning and no real knowledge of if it holds true; we have no reason to think it wouldn’t, but the impact home court advantage pales in comparison to the talent levels of the teams, injuries and numerous other factors, so it would take a very large sample size to isolate those and statistically see if this theory holds up. So, come back in 150 years.
LITTLE WHITE TAKEAWAYS
Logically, it seems like the 2-3-2 format might result in longer series than the classic 2-2-1-1-1 format, if we assume that in the big picture, the team with Home Court Advantage starting out a series has a better chance of winning a road game than the Road team. With Game 5 being played in the Road team’s home arena, they have better odds to pull a series to 3-2 and force a Game 6 than if the same game were played in the Home team’s home arena. Theoretically, over time this would result in the average NBA finals series being at least one game longer.
But, this is all theoretical since there isn’t enough data to analyze this without heavy influence from other variables, partially due to the increased parity of the league over the years, and partially due to the relative rarity of a 3-1 lead for the Home team in the finals (only 9 of the last 24 Finals series have featured a 3-1 Home team lead).
But who knows, maybe the Celtics will win tonight - then we’ll have the Lakers playing Game 5 at home to try to force a Game 6, rather than on the road (EDIT: Hey, I’m psychic).
That’s my random tangent for this week. Back to the Box Score Analysis tomorrow, or maybe Saturday.
-DJ
Thursday, June 12th, 2008