NBA Changes Playoff Seedings

The NBA on Wednesday changed the rule that made it prudent for the Clippers to lose some late-season games and finish lower in the standings last spring.

In a move anticipated for months, the league’s Board of Governors approved a tweak in the playoff seedings that, among other things, ensures that the top two conference finishers will not meet before the conference finals.

The top four seedings still will go to the three division winners and the team with the next-best regular-season record. But instead of the top three seedings automatically going to the division winners, as was the case during the first two seasons of the NBA’s six-division alignment, the top four teams will now be seeded in order of their regular-season records.

Last season, the Dallas Mavericks were seeded fourth in the West despite finishing with the conference’s second-best record, three games behind their Southwest Division rivals, the San Antonio Spurs.

The Denver Nuggets, who won the Northwest Division with a record that was 16 games worse than the Mavericks, were seeded third.

That left the sixth-seeded Clippers a more favorable first-round match-up than the fifth-seeded Memphis Grizzlies. Instead of the Mavericks, the Clippers drew the Nuggets in the first round and, by virtue of a better record, home-court advantage. Dispatching the Nuggets in five games, they won a playoff series for the first time since moving to Los Angeles. The Grizzles were swept by the Mavericks.

In the second round, the Clippers played the Phoenix Suns while the Spurs and Mavericks squared off in a heavyweight conference semifinal.

“I know something doesn’t seem right about that,” Clippers forward Elton Brand said late in the season, addressing the issue of teams benefiting from losing. “But that’s just the way it is, and we’re working under the rules.”

If the new rule had been in place last season, the Clippers would have played the Suns in the opening round of the playoffs, the Lakers would have played the Mavericks and the Grizzlies would have played the Nuggets.

In the East, the Cleveland Cavaliers would have been seeded third and the New Jersey Nets fourth, instead of vice versa.

The NBA also said Wednesday it would increase playoff rosters and will shorten some timeouts. Playoff rosters will be raised to 15 from 13, with each team designating 12 active players and up to three inactive players before each game.