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NBA playoffs see a rare day off The glacial pace of the NBA playoffs produced a day without basketball Saturday, the nine remaining teams — seven of which have already advanced to the second round — spending their time on practice courts instead of inside arenas.
"We're trying to keep sharp and keep fresh at the same time. It's a little bit of a challenge," said Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle, whose team is going through a longer state of limbo than any other playoff team.
The Pacers, who completed a four-game sweep of Boston last Sunday, are awaiting the outcome of the Miami-New Orleans series to determine their second-round opponent. By the time they play Game 1, the Pacers will have had 11 days of rest.
Game 6 of the Heat-Hornets series, with Miami leading 3-2, is Sunday afternoon, to be followed by Game 1 of the second-round series between the Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs.
The NBA, fearing an entire weekend without any playoff games, moved up the start of the Spurs-Lakers series by several days to ensure there would be at least one game Sunday in the league's national television slot on ABC.
The Detroit-New Jersey series will begin Monday, and Sacramento-Minnesota starts Tuesday. All four of those teams will have three days off before playing their Game 2s. The Nets and Pistons could have another three-day break between Games 6 and 7.
"I don't understand waiting till Friday (for Game 2)," was Pistons coach Larry Brown's first reaction upon seeing the second-round schedule following his team's clincher over Milwaukee.
Indiana, meanwhile, won't open the second round until Thursday night — even if Miami finishes off the Hornets on Sunday.
"It's a little difficult. I'm going insane. We're knitting our own uniforms," Pacers center Scot Pollard said.
"You definitely lose momentum, with a team as hot as we were. The team loses momentum physically and mentally, but the fan base loses momentum too. It's like, 'Where the hell is Indiana? Those guys were kicking everybody's butts the last few games, and now they're not doing anything, so let's watch baseball or hockey or whatever else is on in the sports world.'"
An NBA spokesman said the amount of downtime was a consequence of so many first-round series ending in five games or less. Originally, the start dates for the second round were Wednesday and Thursday of this upcoming week.
"The finals are set to begin June 6, and at the earliest June 4, so instead of having one large break right before the finals start, we try to spread things out a little bit throughout the playoffs," spokesman Tim Frank said. "It's just the nature of scheduling, and trying to have a date for the finals that people can plan around."
For logistical and planning reasons, the league and its network partners in a six-year, $4.6 billion television deal prefer to have set dates, with minimal flexibility, for the finals and the conference finals.
With the regular season ending April 14, that leaves a two-month time period for four rounds of playoffs.
In addition to the three-day breaks in the Sacramento-Minnesota and New Jersey-Detroit series, the Lakers and Spurs will play only two games over the first seven days of their series.
The stretched-out scheduling means there will be no doubleheaders on weeknights this week, unless the Miami-New Orleans series goes to a Game 7 on Tuesday. Beginning next weekend, there will be doubleheaders for five consecutive nights through May 12.
"Once we get a couple games into the second round, most of those breaks will be behind us and we'll have a more normal schedule," said Frank, who also explained that the NBA has scheduled second-round Game 7s on the same night in each conference — Wednesday, May 19 in the West, Thursday, May 20 in the East — so that no team would have an extra day of rest if there were two Game 7s to determine a conference finals matchup.
One team that could benefit most from the spread-out scheduling is Detroit, which has several key players recuperating from nagging injuries. Rasheed Wallace has plantar fascia injury to his left arch, Corliss Williamson has a sore knee and elbow and Mike James has a groin injury. "It's unfair to New Jersey," Brown said Saturday. "But the layoff for us will probably be a blessing with the injuries we have to some of our people." Nets forward Richard Jefferson said the time off will benefit Kenyon Martin and Jason Kidd, who both missed several games late in the season because of nagging injuries. "Our health was more of an issue. So the more time we have to rest and give guys a little extra time, that's good," Jefferson said. |
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