Larry Ness NBA Notes: Conference Finals May 23 2004 The Eastern and Western Conference Finals are now set, after two six-game and two seven-game series in the semifinals round. In the East, it will be the Pacers vs. the Pistons beginning on Saturday while in the West, the Timberwolves will take on the Lakers. As I mentioned at the start of this year's playoffs, recent NBA history has seen the postseason closely follow its regular season form. Going back to 1979-80 (the year that Bird and Magic entered the league), only one of the league's 24 champions finished their regular season that year with a record worse than the league's third-best! Fourteen champions have come from teams that finished with the best or tied for best regular season record. Seven other champions have had the league's second-best record (or tied for second-best) and two champions had the league's third-best regular season mark. So far, this year's playoffs have offered few surprises. Of the twelve postseason series contested to date, all but one has been won by the team with the better regular season record. The lone exception was the Lakers beating the Spurs. Home teams have dominated the playoff scene to this point. In the First Round, home teams went 27-12 straight up and 24-15 ATS while in the Second Round they went 20-6 straight up and 16-9-1 ATS. Home dogs struggled in the opening round of the playoffs going just 2-10 straight up and 4-8 ATS but Miami, the only team to be a home dog in any of the second round series, made home dog followers proud by going 2-1 straight up and 3-0 ATS in that role vs. the Pacers. Home favorites were an impressive 25-2 straight up and 20-7 ATS in the first round games but as the better teams advanced, fell to 18-5 straight up and 13-9-1 ATS in the second round. Home teams did continue their history of domination in series forced to go seven games. Three series have gone the distance to this point in the playoffs and all three have been won by the home team (2-1 ATS), giving home teams a record of 73-15 in 88 Game 7’s, all-time! What to expect in this round? The Pacers finished with 61 wins this year, the best record in the league. The Timberwolves finished with 58 wins, the most of any team in the West and second-best in the NBA to Indiana. The Lakers' 56 wins were the fourth-most in the league while Detroit's 54 wins gave them the league's sixth-best record. Based on the previous 24 years (see second paragraph above), that favors either Indiana or Minnesota going on to win the title. Over the last 25 years in the Conference Finals (since 1979), we've seen the teams holding the home court advantage both advance to the NBA Finals, 13 times. In the other 12 instances, it was one team with and one team without the home court edge advancing! The last time both teams without the home court advantage each one their respective Conference Finals and advanced to the NBA Finals was back in 1978. That season, Washington beat Philadelphia in six games in the East while Seattle beat Denver in six games in the West. Interestingly, in the NBA Finals that year, the Bullets went on to beat the Sonics 105-99 in a Game 7 played in Seattle. The very next year, both Seattle and Washington met in The Finals again, after both teams survived seven-game series in their respective Conference Finals (the last time by the way, in which both Conference Final series' went the full seven games). This time around however, Seattle beat Washington. The Sonics lost the first game of that series but then won the next four games. The LA-Minnesota series opens Friday night and although the Timberwolves beat the Lakers in three of four meetings this year and hold the home court advantage in this series, the Lakers are a small road favorite in Game 1. For the series, LA opened at -260 and is already up to almost -350! The Detroit-Indiana series opens on Saturday with the Pacers listed as a five-point favorite in Game 1 and at -160 to win the series. The Pacers beat Detroit in three of four meetings also but the three wins came before Detroit acquired Rasheed Wallace. On April 4th in Detroit with Rasheed, the Pistons beat the Pacers 79-61! Coincidently, that 79-61 Detroit win over Indiana on April 4 was the beginning of my NBA hot-streak! Starting with that game, I've gone 32-12 with my NBA 10* plays, 72.7% ATS! Go to the Guaranteed Picks Page for all my Conference Finals selections, where you will only pay after you win!