FAKE RONJAN!!NBA Finals matchups: "easy" vs. "tough" series in previous round
Quick one today. Since the Spurs swept the Grizz in the Western Conference Finals (huzzah!) and the Heat and Pacers are guaranteed to go at least six games, I wanted to see if there's any relationship between Finals matchups where one team had a much easier path in the previous round than the other. Is the team that had it easy "well rested" or "rusty"? Is the team that is coming off of a tough series "drained" or "ready for anything"?
For the purposes of this, we'll consider sweeps and 4-1 victories as "easy" and anything longer than that as "tough". There are 10 NBA Finals in the past 28 years that pitted matchups like this where one team played at least two more games in the Conference Finals (home teams in CAPS, teams in bold had the easier road):
1987: LAKERS over Celtics
1989: PISTONS over Lakers
1991: BULLS over Lakers
1994: ROCKETS over Knicks
1996: BULLS over Sonics
1998: Bulls over JAZZ
1999: SPURS over Knicks
2001: LAKERS over 76ers
2003: SPURS over Nets
2005: SPURS over Pistons
The home team split is important, because if you look at who eventually won these series, the home team -- the team with the better record in the regular season -- won 9 of these 10 matchups. The only team to buck the trend was the Bulls over the Jazz in 1998.
Conversely, the team with the easier road won 7 of these 10 matchups, and in the two cases where home team and difficulty of previous round disagree (1989 and 2003), the home team won, not the team with the easier path to the finals.
One other quick cut -- so, this may not impact who wins the series, but does it affect Game 1? Two theories -- either the team who had it easier is better rested and they win game 1 vs. an exhausted opponent, or the team who had it easier is rusty and it takes a game to get back into the groove vs. a sharpened opponent.
As it turns out, the home team won game 1 in 9 of these 10 matchups, while the team with the easier road won 7 times. Again the 1989 Pistons and 2003 Spurs are the two cases where home team and easier road don't agree, and they both won game 1 at home while coming off of tougher series than their opponents.
Net -- I don't think there's much to this, and if there is, it's much less important of a factor than overall team quality. So if the Heat defeat the Pacers in an epic seven games, expect them to beat the Spurs in the final.
-rj