Talk:2009 NBA playoffs

4-way tie for the West's #2

Can somebody explain to me how Denver clinched the NW? If four teams are going to be tied at #2 at 54-28, it'll be broken as follows:

1. c-LAL
2. y-HOU 7-4
3. y-POR 6-5
4. DEN 5-6
5. SA 4-7

–Howard the Duck 12:34, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Tiebreaker for division winner are broken first before the other ties. For division winner, if POR and DEN are tied at 54-28, head-to-head record is 2-2, but DEN has better division record, hence DEN will be the division winner. For 4-team tied, it will be like this

1. c-LAL
2. y-HOU
3. y-DEN
4. POR
5. SA

Note that in this scenario HOU and DEN are the division winner so they will get higher seed than non-division winner, therefore HOU and DEN are guaranteed #2-#3, but then HOU wins tiebreaker against DEN, which resulted in #2-HOU and #3-DEN. The other two teams, POR and SA would be #4-#5, but then POR wins tiebreaker against SA, which resulted in #4-POR and #5-DEN. My references for this scenario are from John Hollinger article and NBA.com article and also some discussion thread on RealGM Forum. The full rules of tiebreaker can be read in NBA.com Playoff Picture or simpler version of the rules in 2009 NBA Playoff Matchups - ESPN. Martin tamb (talk) 14:12, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah, division ties first. The loser immediately goes to #4. Thanks. –Howard the Duck 10:48, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't this have to go 2 rounds? What I mean is that Denver and Portland both tied for 1st in the Northwest Division, and so the tie was broken between them (12-4 vs. 11-5) in favor of Denver. Then Denver and San Antonio were compared, a tiebreaker which Denver won. However, it is not my understanding that Portland immediately became seeded 4th. Instead, weren't they compared separately with San Antonio, and just happened to lose the tiebreaker? I thought the rule was that, because Division ties are broken first, Portland could not finish ahead of Denver, but there's nothing that says they can't finish ahead of San Antonio. Right? MrArticleOne (talk) 02:59, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Apparently not. Portland won the season series from San Antonio, but SA was a division winner thanks to Houston losing their final game.

That seems very odd, and inconsistent with the NBA's stated goals when they changed the playoff format. I thought the whole idea was to put the Division champions on par with the best 2nd-place team, to get away from the old practice of automatically seeding the Division Champs 1-2-3. If I'm Portland (or a Blazers fan), I'm frustrated that we had to play Houston instead of Dallas in the First Round. MrArticleOne (talk) 17:43, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Portland was defeated in their tiebreaker against Denver, so they can't be 2nd. The next tie that'll be broken is DEN vs. SAS. But since Portland can't also affect SAS's seeding, they were relegated to #4. –Howard the Duck 04:00, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

What I don't understand is why Portland can't affect SAS' seeding. If, for example, DEN had finished one game better, then Portland wins the tiebreaker against SAS and is seeded 3rd, instead of 4th. I don't understand why DEN's failure to win an additional game affects whether Portland should be placed ahead of SAS when comparing them directly. If there was a paradox (like they're all 1-1 against each other), then obviously Portland's head-to-head against SAS is moot so long as it is a 3-way tie, but once the process has broken the tie in favor of DEN, it seems to me you're still left with a 2-way tie, which favors Portland. I am not saying the NBA broke their own rules, I'm saying I think these rules are curious. MrArticleOne (talk) 03:53, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree that Portland deserves to be rank higher than San Antonio, but I guess NBA rules were correct this time. I suppose the NBA made the "Tie between division leaders was broken first" and "XXX's seeding can't be affected by the tie between YYY and ZZZ" rules to avoid confusion if the following situation occurred. Consider a similar 3-team tie DEN-SAS-POR, but this time SAS wins the tiebreaker against DEN, while DEN win tiebreaker against POR (hence Div. winners), and POR win tiebreaker against SAS. Imagine if the there were no "Tie between division leaders was broken first" and "XXX's seeding can't be affected by the tie between YYY and ZZZ" rules, how should they be ranked? More complex situation can occurred if there were 4-team tie with HOU as Howard mention earlier in this discussion and can only be solved by having these two rules. IMO hese rules are a little bit weird and confusing but it seems that Portland are just unlucky this year. - Martin tamb (talk) 12:17, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Your hypothetical seems easy enough to me. If Division ties are broken first, and DEN beats POR, then you compare DEN and SAS directly. SAS wins the tiebreaker against DEN, and SAS is 2nd. We've already established that DEN wins against POR, so DEN is 3rd and POR 4th. Easy! If teams A, B and C are tied, it is quite likely that one of them will hold a tiebreaker over another that ends up being negated because of the 3-way tiebreaking rules. It just seems to me that once you've separated one team from the group of 3, you start over comparing the 2 remaining teams directly. MrArticleOne (talk) 15:54, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

That's exactly my point, the tied to determine division winners (DEN-POR) is broken first, and then POR can't affect the seedings of DEN and SAS, even though POR wins the tiebreaker against SAS, no matter whether SAS won or lost the tiebreaker against DEN. - Martin tamb (talk) 05:05, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

What I don't understand is why the NBA allows the DEN-POR tiebreaker to control POR-SAS given the recent change to the playoff seeding format. It would make perfect sense in the NFL or NHL, where the Division Champions are automatically seeded 1-2-3. But the NBA recently decided to stop doing that, and to consider the best 2nd-place team on a level par with the Division Champions. It is that aspect of the recent history that I find confusing. MrArticleOne (talk) 13:50, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Daughter articles

I'd be creating 2009 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs and 2009 NBA Western Conference Playoffs to include the stats, starts time and box score links. The basketballboxes in this article should've been date, teams, score, place and TV just like in the 2008 article. –Howard the Duck 04:42, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Merged back to 2009 NBA Playoffs per afd discussion—Chris! _ct 02:32, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I can't wait how big the article size will be once June comes along... –Howard the Duck 10:02, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Is it expected to be significantly larger than 2008 NBA Playoffs? -- Jonel (Speak to me) 17:27, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

2008 playoffs article size was 54 kb, all four rounds. Currently, 2009 stands at 48, and series summaries aren't even present for the first round. –Howard the Duck 17:51, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone think it is about time this idea has to be reconsidered? The article is getting really hard to read now, and I'm not even saying how big it is at this time... –Howard the Duck 16:47, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

If no one objects I'll be moving the stats to 2009 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs and 2009 NBA Western Conference Playoffs but I'll leave out the summaries here. 119.95.27.112 <(talk) –Howard the Duck 18:53, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the current article format is fine, even though the article is long, there is no need to create daughter articles if the information would be the same with the main article. But this is just one person opinion, better to wait for other opinions. Perhaps you would get faster response if you brought this issue in WT:NBA. — Martin tamb (talk) 10:32, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Also because the series summaries isn't complete, the main article will be very short and incomplete if you move the stats to the daughter articles, perhaps it's more significant to try to complete the series summaries first rather than creating daughter articles. — Martin tamb (talk) 10:36, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

One thing that I think would be very helpful to readability would be to make the basketballbox template collapsible, so each game takes up considerably less space. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 11:49, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

The 2008 NBA Playoffs article has no stats, and all playoffs series have summaries, and they have a size of 54 kb. That's still long, and I can probably make series summaries for those that don't have one. Those sweeps are quite to easy to create, plus references are easy to find.

As for collapsible boxes, those information will still load, so they'll still be long, so "hiding" them would still retain the large size. –Howard the Duck 12:28, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Like I said, that's more of a readability concern than an article size concern. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 18:46, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree on the long article, but in my opinion it's still pretty much readable. I also agree that the 2008 NBA Playoffs article does looks nice and simple without additional stats. But I'm still against the daughter article idea just because it would be weird if the 2009 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs and 2009 NBA Western Conference Playoffs would only have statistics and no series summaries. However, I've put up a notice on WT:NBA to have other users participate on this discussion. — Martin tamb (talk) 18:14, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

The current article is not too long, so I too opposed this proposal. Also, this has already gone through afd, so recreating them is pretty much against consensus.—Chris!_c/t 18:33, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I thought this article was over 100kb long, but it's at 70+ but it's still over the recommended size (but not as bad as I thought). With that said, dumping stats into a daughter article seems a pretty normal thing to do on other sport articles.

As for the AFD, consensus was not to "delete" but to merge. But consensus is not forever and it'll be OK if the daughter articles do have series summaries (or even game-by-game summaries). –Howard the Duck 19:08, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, dumping stats into a daughter article is a pretty normal thing for other sports. I remember the football project fought hard in this afd to keep 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup Final split out of 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup. But just because an article can be created, does not mean it should. That's why I am not willing to let unnecessary daughter articles get created. If this article is super long, I may agree with you. But as of now, it is not long in my opinion.—Chris!_c/t 19:26, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't this article bound to get long when series summaries are created? Missing are Eastern playoffs from the Conference Semifinals, the entire Western Conference playoffs, and the Finals, plus the Celtics-Bulls one is short. If summaries are added for those, this might approach 100kb. –Howard the Duck 19:35, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Although wiki guideline advise that article should not be over 100kb, I think common sense should be applied here. You got to remember that the total size is artificially inflated due to large number of templates and tables, so the amount of prose is actually very small and the article look small. Why don't we leave this for now? If the summary is added, then we restart the discussion and go from there.—Chris!_c/t 19:51, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm supporting the idea on finishing the series summaries before deciding on whether the daughter articles are needed. As for the readability issue, I agree with User:Jonel idea of a collapsible basketballbox template. — Martin tamb (talk) 21:38, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

"Los Angeles wins series..."

Should really be "L.A. Lakers wins series..." considering there's another Los Angeles team, and the bracket uses "L.A. Lakers". On TV they also use "L.A. Lakers" instead of "Los Angeles" on their scoreboard DOGs. –Howard the Duck 17:00, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I personally don't think this is confusing since we already clarify that multiple times in the team parameters as well as the qualifying and bracket sections. But if you still think this is confusing, I would not opposing changing to L.A. Lakers.—Chris! _ct 18:35, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I just want it to be consistent. –Howard the Duck 10:47, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Summaries

Can't there be any summaries for the series? Cleveland vs. Orlando has nothing.

--68.228.186.18 (talk) 15:19, 23 May 2009 (UTC)