The play-in tournament did well to NFL-ize the NBA playoffs, making the seeding within their bracket way more important than home court. There was the race for #6 (to avoid the play-in), the race for #8 (to avoid needing to win two games), and of course the race for the #10 seed, keeping a lot of terrible teams alive long past they ever would've in the past. Of course, ironically the NFL is actively going away from this with only having a bye for the #1 seed.
But what we're now realizing is whether its the format with double-elimination for the better teams, or the fact that some of these are, at the end of the day, the 10th best team in their conference, the games themselves in teh playoffs are not set-up for success. This may very much change tomorrow and Friday, when the loser of the 7v8 and winner of 9v10 play each other in what truly is a do or die game, but guess what? That's two games out of six.
What we realize is the 9v10 is a damn 9v10 game - like really who cares. The winner isn't even in the playoffs yet. That Pacers v Grizzlies game was dreadful. The Spurs v. Grizzlies game was fine (it was somewhat close) but again, one of these teams was 33-39. The Lakers v Warriors game was so hyped, but guess what? Everyone assumes the loser will just blast the Grizzlies anyway. And this is about as big as this game will ever be, with a combination of covid and injuries putting two teams into the 7v8 that shouldn't really be there. It won't get better, and it still wasn't all that great.
I don't know if there's an easy fix. I think we can live with a cognitive dissonance of the play-in being a huge boon for the regular season but all in itself pretty meaningless when you actually get to the games. For next year, though, when we're left with probably not a LeBron James & Anthony Davis v Stephen Curry game, I fear these 7v8 games won't be all that meaningful either.
The only fix I can really think of is one the NBA would absolutely never go to, which is just have 7v10 and 8v9, single elimination. Again, no way the NBA agrees, and if they do there is some credence to the idea of how unfair it is for the higher seed teams. And yes, I don't think a game of Lakers v Spurs wouldn've been any more close than the bad games we've seen elsewhere in teh play-in, but the spectre of single elimination, especially when a good team is potentially on the chopping block, is just more interesting. No one cares that the terrible Spurs or Hornets are now out of the playoffs, but if there was a chance the Lakers wouldn't be because of one game, or Celtics even, it would be a lot better.
I may be overreacting to two bad games, but the little care I felt around this hypefest that was Lakers v Warriors defintieyl does indicate something a bit soulless about this set-up. I'm sure I'll feel adequate emotional connection with the game on Friday where the loser plays the Grizzlies, but for what cause. It will be interesting to see next year, where almost inevitably we won't have a Lakers-type team in the play-in, if the imapct it had on the regular season remains.
In the end, the play-in did have a significant effect improving the end of the regular season. That might be invaluable for the NBA, a sport which in past year's really struggled with avoiding general malaise late in seasons. That was so limited this year, but was also bouyed by great races further up the playoff field, something that would have been there even without the play-in structure. But when it ends up with some soulless games that have so little 'playoff atmosphere' and delays the actual start of the actual playoffs by a nice 3-4 days, I do wonder if it's all worth it.
