The bubble has worked, but let’s not do it again Online:
The NBA bubble has three to six games left after Wednesday night’s Finals opener. If there is any mercy left in this world, it will permanently burst.
It’s fine to congratulate the NBA and NHL for determining real champions in an unreal time, but let’s not forget the deadly circumstances that led us there. For more than 200,000 grieving American families and thousands more COVID-19 victims whose hearts, minds and limbs are still not quite right, this year of hell is not softened by a trophy presentation.
And whenever the Lakers get this far again, L.A. fans need to be there.
Think of the ticket-holders who regularly attended the past six years of Laker wretchedness, holding their beachhead for the day when the Finals returned. Their loyalty and optimism should be rewarded.
But it’s not just the scene at Staples Center, which was the site of the first, second and third championships won by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. It’s the flags dangling from the car windows, and it’s the billboards, and it’s the chat
For coverage of Game 1 of the NBA Finals between Los Angeles and Miami, please go to mercurynews.com.
ter that fills up the booths and tables of L.A. Live, pregame and postgame.
The virus has deprived the fans of the shared experience. High-fives don’t work without partners, and buzz doesn’t survive a vacuum.
Presumably there will be a lengthy, cathartic parade if the Lakers defeat the Miami Heat and win this championship. The Lakers say they miss their fans. They also miss all forms of human contact. They might be pampered but they are still confined.
What the bubble really did is provide a laboratory to learn how teams function and whether a live audience really affects performance.
Without the home-court advantage, there have been four seven-game series, which is fairly normal. There were three in 2019, four in 2018, two in 2017 and five in 2016.
The Lakers won the Western Conference as the top seed even though they had no special privileges.
Miami was the fifth seed in the East and becomes the first to reach the Finals under the current seeding rules. But late in the season the Heat picked up Jae Crowder and Andre Igoudala and came to Disney World with distinct expectations. It helped that the Heat matched up so well with top-seed Milwaukee.
Likewise, “bubble fatigue” wasn’t as prominent as feared. Houston and the Clippers looked ready to get out of Dodge in their elimination games, but we’ve seen them look that way on their home courts, too. The competitive edge was, if anything, sharper.
Quality of play? Maybe it looked so shiny because we’d been deprived of the game for so long. But the buzzer-beaters, the comebacks, and the startling plays were a nightly feature.
For those who suspected that NBA teams travel too much, the bubble was an affirmation.
Think of the Lakers-Miami series. After Games 1 and 2 at Staples, both teams and everyone in the accompanying cast gets on a plane and flies 5 1/2 hours to South Florida. For the Heat, that would follow five round trips to Indianapolis, Milwaukee and Boston, all of which are two to three hours away.
Without the bubble, the Heat will have already flown 12,112 miles before the series with Los Angeles, which is 2,357 air miles from Miami.
Granted, nobody in the NBA knows what a middle seat or a baggage carousel is. It’s more like an airborne Wolfgang Puck kitchen. But it’s still air travel, with all kinds of body effects and sleep disruptions that the therapists haven’t fully measured. It does not speed up the healing process or clarify the mind.
The NBA has noticed the improvement in Bubble Ball, and some people in the league are wondering if the schedules should be re-thought.
Is it necessary for every team to play every other team? It doesn’t happen in baseball or in the NFL. Charlotte might miss its annual visit by LeBron James but might enjoy more visits by Giannis Antetokounmpo. More games within your time zone means more prime-time basketball and a chance for better ratings.
There is also talk of baseball-style series. If the Lakers are slotted for two regular-seasons games at Minnesota, why not play them back to back?
As the coronavirus outbreaks chop up college football, and as the NFL tries to play through a disease that is launching its fall offensive, it’s hard to overstate how brilliantly the NBA and NHL have done their thing.
Necessity, again, was the mother of invention in 2020. If we do what’s right, we can bring back the whole family.