Well, after a week of waiting the NBA finals are here. The Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics are set to play each other for the 11th time in the finals. These are the two most historic teams in the NBA, a combined 30 titles between the two. There are many storylines in the NBA finals. Paul Pierce returns to Los Angeles. Ray Allen against Kobe Bryant. East coast vs West Coast. Magic vs. Bird. This is one of the most anticipated finals in recent memory. All the angles have been beaten to death, except one thing that has not been talked about is the layoff from when each team closed off their series to the start of this series.
It has been one week since the Lakers played, 6 days since the Celtics played. Which begs the question, why did the NBA wait one week for the series to start. The hype has been overplayed, this will have to be an amazing series to even come close to the hype that this series has generated. Every paper has covered just about every angle of the finals, and there is really not anything else to say that has been not covered already. Maybe this would become understandable if the NBA had delayed the start of the finals one week so that a potential game 7 would be on a Sunday, but the Game 7 will be on Thursday night if the series gets that far.
The Finals are on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, and there are three day rest not being travel days. By moving the finals forward, to start on Tuesday, there would not be as much of a potential for rustiness in Game 1, because as of now with a week layoff there is a potential for rustiness especially in Game 1 which will make it hard for Game 1 of the finals to live up to the hype. The finals should be about accommodating the teams. Which means giving them that third day on travel days, especially if they feel the travel is too much that the series needs to be in a 2-3-2 format so that they can go across the country. They have decided that the travel impacts the series enough that they should not fly back and forth across the country between games 4,5,6, and 7. However, by giving only the singular off-day they are saying that the travel does not get as much consideration as they seem to be giving it.
The NBA has made the finals schedule to accommodate ABC. The Finals has turned into a media circus, and the NBA is accommodating the media, rather then trying to ensure the quality of the finals, and to accommodate the teams that are actually playing in the Finals. The Lakers and Celtics have both had great seasons, however one team will go home empty in two weeks. However, we could have started this series already, and figure out which team has the upperhand early in this series.
