NBA Continues to Use Traditional Finals Format

​As CEO and president of both KasLen Textiles, LLC, and NewPoint Fabrics Inc., David Raminfard is tasked with sourcing fabrics from a number of international suppliers. Beyond his professional activities, David Raminfard enjoys following the National Basketball Association (NBA), particularly during the NBA Finals.

The 2014 NBA Finals marked an important change to the league’s championship series while at the same time bringing about closure to David Stern’s three-decade tenure as league commissioner. Beginning with the 1985 NBA Finals, the first under Stern’s aegis, teams competed in a 2-3-2 format, meaning the first two games and, if necessary, final two games of the best-of-seven series would be contested on the home team’s floor, with the middle three games taking place on the lower seeded team’s court. The format differed from previous NBA Finals and all other best-of-seven series in the post season, held under a 2-2-1-1-1 format.

Stern initiated the change in 1985 as part of his and the league’s plan to gain better television coverage for the NBA, especially during the playoffs. With the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers facing off against the Los Angeles Lakers in six NBA Finals throughout the 1980s, national camera crews were forced to continuously trek back and forth across the country, sometimes three times in less than one week.

While the updated format made travel easier, critics felt it was unfair to give the lower seeded team three consecutive home games, forcing the higher seed to remain on the road for more than a week at a time. In 2013, with Stern’s time as commissioner coming to a closer, league ownership voted unanimously to revert back to the traditional format. Since that time, all NBA Finals series have gone to at least five games, with notable contests including home close-out games by the San Antonio Spurs in 2014 and the Golden State Warriors in 2017, and the Cleveland Cavaliers securing an important road win over the Warriors on their way to the first-ever comeback from a 3-1 deficit in NBA Finals history.

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