I read the article by Bill Simmons entitled Time to Fix the NBA Playoffs, and while I agree with some of what he and others have said about matching the teams up better based on actual records, not just conferences, reseeding isn’t going to fix the NBA Playoffs.

Was Cleveland really that lousy that they didn’t deserve to play in the NBA Finals?

I don’t think so.

They beat Detroit when Detroit had home-court advantage, after all. And, no, Detroit couldn’t have won more than a game against the Spurs, and it wouldn’t have been exciting even if they were in it for that extra game.

The biggest problem about the NBA Finals this year (and most years, for that matter) wasn’t that San Antonio was playing against a far lesser opponent. (They actually took care of some pretty good teams without breaking much of a sweat.) The biggest problem with the NBA Finals was that the two teams playing in the finals were boring?

How is reseeding the NBA Playoffs supposed to prevent two boring teams from making it into the Finals?
 
It isn’t like San Antonio and Detroit would have been much better. Or San Antonio and Miami. Or San Antonio and Houston or Utah or New Jersey.
 
What people REALLY want to see are two talented up-tempo teams playing in the NBA Finals.
 
I’ve heard lots of people saying “if Phoenix were there…” or “if Dallas were there…” or even “if Golden State were there…” What teams are they picking? They are picking the teams that frequently score over 100 points.
 
Those teams rarely make it to the NBA Finals.
 
For some reason EVERYBODY seems to overlook that.
 
Sure Dallas made it into the Finals last year, and last year people watched. Lots of people watched. But last year was a fluke.
 
The ONLY way to fix the NBA Playoffs is to change the playoffs so that up-tempo teams actually win.
 

Dallas had a chance of making it into the NBA Finals again, though the chance was actually fairly slim. They probably would have beat Utah, but I don’t think they could have beaten San Antonio with one Ginobili tied behind their back.
 
Phoenix never had a chance. They couldn’t have beaten Utah. They had a chance at San Antonio and couldn’t do it. They were never really even that close, despite what Amare Stoudemire thought.
 
Golden State, though fun, was lucky to play Dallas in the first round. They would have lost to any other team except perhaps Phoenix. Maybe.
 
An up-tempo style is fun to watch in the regular season. We know it would be fun to watch in the playoffs.
 
An up-tempo style can win games in the regular season. Lots of games, in point of fact, as we saw from Dallas, Phoenix, and the last month of Golden State.
 
An up-tempo style CANNOT win games with any regularity in the playoffs.
 
You look at the teams who win in the playoffs, and they are never the teams who regularly score over 100 points.
 
Never.
 
The only way to fix the NBA Playoffs is to call games the same way as they do in the regular season. Until then, get used to watching San Antonio vs Cleveland. That’s all you’re going to get!