WNBA Drops Ball Come Playoff Time

In 1984, the Tigers cruised to the AL East Division crown. They started 9-0, then 16-1, then 26-4, then 35-5. Nobody ever caught them. They won 104 games. Still, when the curtain was raised on the '84 postseason, the Tigers found themselves in Kansas City, playing on the artificial rug of Royals Stadium -- even though they won a full 20 games more than the Royals during the regular season. No matter. The Tigers, thanks to baseball's silly method of awarding home field advantage to divisions in opposite years, had the misfortune of winning their division in an even-numbered year. The year for the West winner to host the first two games of the best-of-five series.

It rankled a few, as it should have. Could the Tigers, despite their April-to-September brilliance, be bumped out of the playoffs by an inferior Royals team, thanks in part to starting a short series on the road, unfairly so?

Thankfully, it didn't come to that. The Tigers dutifully swept the Royals into their living rooms, to watch the World Series on television.

The WNBA is once again showing why they are a wannabe major league operating under bush league conditions.

The Detroit Shock, like the '84 Tigers, made mincemeat of their division. They had sewn up the title with four regular season games remaining -- out of 34. The first round of the league playoffs is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it best-of-three affair. That's kind of weird to me, right there. But it gets weirder. For whatever reason, the series is set up so that the team with home court advantage -- at least it's determined by merit -- begins on the road. So the Shock, with their glittering 24-10 record, had to begin their league title defense in New York, in hostile Madison Square Garden, against a mediocre Liberty team.

Sure enough, the Shock were tripped in Game 1. Suddenly they faced elimination, just like that, as they prepared to play Game 2 at The Palace.

The Shock slipped by the Liberty, 76-73, in Game 2. Their title defense survives for another game. Game 3, the rubber game, is set for tonight in Auburn Hills.

Now, it's not a gimme that the Shock would have won Game 1 had it simply been played at home. The Shock, after clinching the division so early, went into that "we don't care about wins, just health" mode, and promptly lost their last four matches. Frankly, I've never been comfortable with that approach heading into the playoffs, no matter the sport. Good, crisp play doesn't come out of a spigot; you can't just turn it on whenever you want.

So the late season half-effort is playing more than a small part, I think, in the Shock's difficulties with the much weaker Liberty. But starting Game 1 on the road in a best-of-three, when you have home court advantage, is unacceptable.

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The WNBA is once again showing why they are a wannabe major league operating under bush league conditions.
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Why does the WNBA do it this way? To save on travel costs? In a three-game series, the home-away-home system means more traveling than the away-home-home method, granted. But is the league that cash-strapped? How much does it cost to jet the teams from Detroit to New York and back again?

Travel cost is already being saved by limiting the first round to a three-game maximum, although I always thought longer series meant more gate and concession money, but what do I know?

But I can abide the 2-of-3 mini-series if the superior team gets to start it at home, where it should. Yet nobody seems to squawk about it, so there you have it.

Still, it's time for the WNBA to step up and act like a major league, instead of putting on minor league-style playoffs.