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NBA: Tweaks To NBA Finals Schedule A Good Change

ByPhil Watson|
June 7, 2015; Oakland, CA, USA; General view as Golden State Warriors players are introduced before playing against the Cleveland Cavaliers in game two of the NBA Finals at Oracle Arena. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
June 7, 2015; Oakland, CA, USA; General view as Golden State Warriors players are introduced before playing against the Cleveland Cavaliers in game two of the NBA Finals at Oracle Arena. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

The NBA announced on Wednesday some small tweaks to the scheduling of the NBA Finals in order to ensure adequate travel time between cities.

Breaking from the decades-old Tuesday-Thursday-Sunday scheduling, the NBA Finals will now ensure there are two days between games when the combatants have to change venues.

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That puts the NBA Finals schedule more in line with the rest of the playoffs and helps to ensure adequate rest is built into the league’s biggest showcase in an attempt to produce the best quality of play.

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If the 2016 NBA Finals go the full seven games, Game 2 will be on Sunday, June 5, with Game 3 set for Wednesday, June 8 after the teams change cities.

After Game 4 on Friday, June 10, Game 5 would be Monday, June 13. Game 6 would be played Thursday, June 16 and Game 7 on Sunday, June 19.

The NBA has made a great effort this season to reduce incidents of four games in five nights and back-to-back games and the changes to the Finals schedule reflect those earlier modifications.

“Our focus was really on players’ rest and recuperation,” NBA vice president of basketball operations Kiki VanDeWeghe said last month when the regular-season schedule was released. “We’ve worked hard with the teams, the broadcast partners and the venues to get the overall travel down and more time between games.”

That is something players have wanted for a long time and the 2015-16 schedule features just 27 four-in-five stretches, down 61 percent from 2014-15.

Back-to-backs are down to an average of 18 per team this season, down from more than 20 per club last season.

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    • Last year’s NBA Finals’ schedule included just one day between Game 2 in Oakland and Game 3 in Cleveland and one day between Games 5 and 6 with a trip east from the Bay Area to northeast Ohio thrown in.

    The NBA adopted the Tuesday-Thursday-Sunday scheduling for the NBA Finals in 1987 and this will be the first deviation from that format since.

    It’s certainly a far cry from the “good old days,” such as when the NBA Finals featured a transcontinental back-to-back in 1967.

    The San Francisco Warriors and Philadelphia 76ers played Game 5 of their series on Sunday, April 23 at the Philadelphia Convention Hall and Game 6 was on Monday, April 24 at the Cow Palace in San Francisco.

    Holy jet lag, Batman.

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