From my latest on Hoopsworld:
What does this prove? That entering the playoffs with a top seed doesn’t guarantee anything. In fact, looking back at Detroit’s string of five Conference Finals appearances, the only times they managed to advance to the NBA Finals came during the two seasons they failed to garner the top seed in the East - they were the No. 3 seed when they won it all in 2004 and the No. 2 seed in 2005.
A look at the rest of the league shows that this trend is actually quite common. Since 2001, only one NBA champion began the playoffs as a No. 1 seed: the San Antonio Spurs in 2003. The other six titles were evenly split between No. 2 and No. 3 seeds.
Moral of the story: develop the bench. (Thanks to DBB Reader PDXPistonsFan for planting the seed of the story idea).
Ideas that didn’t make their way into the column: It definitely hurt having to play Game 7 of the 2005 Finals in San Antonio, but how many times do you see a team essentially give away homecourt advantage by losing one of the first two games of a series? And, as we saw with the path the No. 2 Cavs took to the Conference Finals (a hobbled Wizards team missing Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler in the first round, the Nets in the second), it’s not like the top seed guarantees the easiest path through the playoffs, either.
Well written Matt.
Agreed. If a team is solid enough physically and mentally, and still has its wind, it should win regardless of setting. Otherwise, it gets beat like the Pistons have for the past two years.
I can’t stand home-court apologist arguments. You were BEATEN!
I looked at the avg. playoff minutes of the NBA champs for the past few years to see how deep each team went with their bench. Here are the 6-9th man minutes for the past few champions bench with (minutes) along with last year’s Pistons.
07 DET - ‘Dyess (21.6), Maxiell (9.1), Flip (8.1), LH (8.1), CD (8.1)
07 Spurs - Oberto (20.8), Horry (20.1), Barry, (11.8), Elson (11.5)
06 Heat - Posey (27.8), Payton (24.3), Mourning (10.8), Doleac (9.0)
05 Spurs - Barry (23.5), Nazr M. (22.6), Udrih (10.0), Rasho N. (10)
04 Pistons - Corliss (13.9), Hunter (11.0), Okur (10.6), James (8.9)
Like Matt W. says, deeper gives you a better chance to win. In the playoffs last year Billups, Hamilton, and Prince all played a greater percentage of their team’s minutes than Tim Duncan. The team should be aiming to split 50-60 minutes of playing time per game between Stuckey, Amir, and Maxiell come PLAYOFF time - that means even more in the regular season.
While I am all about cultivating a strong bench, you cannot discount the value of the one seed. Statistically speaking, the one seed misses so frequently because it is one team vs. the field, but the one seed is still the most likely to make it to the championship.
Further, if you are looking at a 50-55 win team like the Pistons, 3-4 games makes a big difference. 51 wins might mean the one seed in the EC, while 47 might mean the 5 seed, which would be disastrous.
Now, San Antonio obviously made a conscious effort to rest their guys throughout the season. However, they still won 3/4 of their games. The margin of error is a little smaller for the Pistons.
I would be interested to see if their is any data demonstrating that the 2nd or 3rd best teams (who are more likely to have “rested” their starters) have more success in the playoffs, but I am skeptical.
That said, it is clear that Maxiell has earned more minutes, and I am high on Johnson and Stuckey. They should be forced to earn their minutes.
Kevin S.– The Pistons would have been better off at the 2 seed than the 3 seed in this last year’s playoffs. We would have faced a depleted Washington, then New Jersey before yawning our way into the ECF. Instead, we played a boring Orlando, then a very resilient Chicago team before the conference finals.
The 1 seed means nothing, nothing at all, until you know how the playoff bracket turns out. It is possible that Detroit could play Boston then Miami then Chicago in the playoffs next year– rounds one, two, and three, if we land the 1st seed. Or we could play Orlando, New Jersey, and then Chicago in the playoffs. 1st seed doesn’t matter at all– until we know how the rest of the bracket plays out. This is something we have no control over, so it is the same as a roll of the dice…
Want a good example? Imagine if Dallas played the Clippers instead of Golden State…
Mike,
Getting the 2 seed would have been almost impossible. Had we fallen out of the division lead, we most likely would have been the 5, giving us a Miami/Cleveland/Chicago route to the finals, without home court advantage for the latter two series. Yuck.
Even with the seeding goofiness imposed by the absurd three-division system, the odds certainly indicate that it makes a lot of sense to shoot for the one seed.
Fatigue does not only occur in the playoffs. If our bench has the goods to earn the minutes, then we will see improved play from the big four during the regular season, which will offset 1-3 losses in close call games in which their added minutes would have made a difference.
But if Saunders sees that we are dropping 2 games in 10, there is a fair question as to what the bench is going to contribute in the playoffs, and a fair question as to how much more difficult playoff matchups become.
kevin s.,
Actually, Cleveland was the 2 seed last year. Remember, the NBA finally said division winners were only guaranteed at top 4 seed, not a top 3 seed as in prior years.
NNOOOOOOO!!!! Prince got dinged playing for Team USA.
AP - LAS VEGAS — Tayshaun Prince sprained his left ankle in the first quarter of the United States’ game with Brazil on Sunday night in the FIBA Americas tournament.
The 6-foot-9 forward for the Detroit Pistons fell and stayed on the floor after going for a defensive rebound late in the first quarter. He was attended to for about a minute and then helped off the court. He gingerly walked to the locker room.
A team spokesman said team doctors decided Prince would not return to the game as a precautionary measure and he would be reevaluated Monday.
- - -
I was watching live when it happened. It looked bad enough that you went ‘I hope that’s not serious’. Here’s hoping it’s not serious.
Yeah, I saw Prince fall. Nightmarish. Got my fingers crossed that he’s ok.
I saw it too. Didn’t look good but as long as Arnie Kander can get a flight to vegas I’m not worried.
joejoejoe: nice research with those bench stats — that’s really interesting.
Also, thanks for the head’s up about Tayshaun, as disappointing as that was to read.