Via Andrew Sullivan, a statement from Joe Dumars:
Yes, Boston has won four games and Detroit only two. But it’s hard to imagine a more arbitrary and undemocratic way to determine this series’s outcome than “games won.” It is, after all, a bedrock value of the game of basketball that all points must be counted. But how can that be the case when every point beyond the winning point is ignored? There are literally dozens of layups, jumpers, free throws, and (yes, even) dunks that our opponents want to say don’t count for anything at all. We call on the NBA to do the right thing and fully count all of the baskets that were made throughout the course of this series. Once you abandon the artificial four-games-to-two framework that the media has tried to impose on the series, a very different picture emerges, with the Celtics leading by a mere 549 points to 539. Yes that’s right, the margin between the two teams is less than one percent—a tie, for all intents and purposes.
While I see Dumars’ point here, he’s fighting the wrong battle. Detroit shouldn’t have had to play Boston at all. You see, when you take away the media imposed “four-games-to-three” framework that handed Boston their victory over Cleveland and look at the popular score, Cleveland came out on top 596-588. Like Bill Clinton, I’ve never seen a team get so relentlessly hounded out by the media, just because they lost more games. David Stern and the NBA need to step up and count all the points, or else we’re going to fight this injustice all the way to New York and the draft.
Jeremy Beales 