Poll > How much of the NBA finals did you watch

[sturt]

There's a lot of talk about the health of the league when TV ratings for recent NBA Finals (and playoffs generally) have been so hideous... so I thought I'd ask our own fans, if you had to put a percentage on it, how much did you watch, all told?

And for discussion purposes, do you think the league has anything to be concerned about, or is it all about the Spurs style of play?

[TexasPete]

For the first time in 35 years I did not watch at all. I despise SA and all their flopping. Parker can't even drive one time to the hole without falling down.

I TIVOed a few things against PHX and what I saw in slow mo was that the SA players all flop. It is in their DNA. I hate flopping and am sick of officials rewarding it.

When Horry and the Spurs won the PHX series because of Horry's dirty play I decided never to watch SA again. I just hate the way they play.

They are a great team for sure. I just wish that they weren't such a bunch of floppers.

Oh, and when Nash and Parker collided and Nash got the cut it was Parker who laid down like he was shot for 5 minutes...and then the sissy stayed in the game. He makes this big production and Nash stood like a man and he was hurt worse.

Did I mention I despise SA?

[pimp]

Zero

I did'nt watch 1 second of the Finala.I didn;t watch any highlights on SportsCenter.

I was not interested in the match up at all.

I think the Spurs and Cavs are both boring.

Really the only games i watched were Warriors/Mavs and

Nets/Raptors.

[BossTweed]

I watched a lot less than I usually do. I actually watched pretty much all of the series' up to the finals that I could manage, but couldn't watch much more than half the finals. I saw the first halves of the first two games and knew that Cleveland had no shot, so I only watched parts of the first half of the next two just to make sure they were still going to get beat.

There was nothing exciting about those games, and Lebron hasn't refined his game enough for me to enjoy the game just for him vs Spurs. It's amazing how bad the rest of the Cavs are, and that they made it to the finals. Their coach is horrible offensively too.

[Frenzy]

Actually,i watched all of the games

[Lascar78]

I watched between 75 and 100%. I was sick this week so I fell asleep during some games. I don't see how any NBA fan could not want to watch the NBA finals. That is honestly beyond me.

[Dejay]

I'm not going to lie to you, I didn't watch a second of it. I'm not a big fan of the Spurs but I knew that Cleveland didn't have the firepower to stay with them. I wasn't at all interested in watching that backcracking unfold.

[pimp]

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I watched between 75 and 100%. I was sick this week so I fell asleep during some games. I don't see how any NBA fan could not want to watch the NBA finals. That is honestly beyond me.

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Are you sure that watching those games are not what made you sick??

I heard they were awful.

[Frenzy]

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I watched between 75 and 100%. I was sick this week so I fell asleep during some games. I don't see how any NBA fan could not want to watch the NBA finals. That is honestly beyond me.

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i fell asleep during some though

[coachx]

I saw the 2nd half of every game. Unitl 10:00 I got to keep good chemistry in the house so from 7:00 - 10:00 is fiancee' time.

But I watch the 2nd half of every game. That is what counts the most any way. I'm tired at work that next morning but the finals are only once a year and this uear it wa only 4 games.

Like they say... "You can't win a game in the 1st half, but you sure can lose a game in the 1st half. "

Ratings were down b/c it was a 4 game sweep. Had it been competitive more and more people would have tned in as the series progressed.

The 2 teams are also both mid west teams. No real East / West pride in that !

[Lascar78]

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Are you sure that watching those games are not what made you sick??

I heard they were awful.

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The only thing that was awful was that Cleveland was no competition. There was a championship team and a varsity team. Watching the Spurs systematically pick the Cavs apart in games 1 and 2 was actually fantastic basketball.

[DrReality]

All games combined, I didn't warch more than a couple quarters.

[troubleman]

Quote:

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I watched between 75 and 100%. I was sick this week so I fell asleep during some games. I don't see how any NBA fan could not want to watch the NBA finals. That is honestly beyond me.

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I guess I must be losing my NBA fan membership, because I probably watched less than 10%. I felt bad, because people at work know I'm a big basketball fan, so when they asked me about the Finals, of course I had no answers for them.

Maybe I peaked too early. Maybe it was watching my hometown Golden State Warriors, and the crowds at their home games. I don't know, but whatever it was, I lost interest after the Warriors were eliminated. The funny thing is, I was never much of a Warriors fan growing up, which I guess made it easier for me to become a Hawks fan when I moved to Atlanta in the 80's. Maybe when the Hawks make it back to the playoffs I'll regain that feeling.

[Duff_Man]

I watched most of it for the hilarity factor. Seeing Mike Brown fumble through NBA games is a treat. He is an abysmal coach and does some of the funniest things. High comedy. The offense he ran looked like Bob Weiss'. Give it to the star and everyone just stand around.

[Spiral]

I'd say about 25%. It wasn't because I was completely disinterested though. It was because I was doing other things. If I was home and I could watch, I had the finals on. I will say this much; if it was a more compelling match-up, I probably would have made it more of a priority to be home to where I could watch more.

[Seano]

I watched it all, just because it was the last basketball of the season. It was an absolutely terrible series though, like Cleveland literally did not belong on the same court with that SA team. IMO one of the worst mismatches in Finals history. The games just sucked like an Electrolux- there's no way around that. But the one redeeming feature of this Finals for me was seeing how completely dominant the Spurs are. I mean they are so well-schooled and fundamentally sound that it is almost ridiculous, and as many have noted, they can play any style of ball successfully, as their opponent and the situation dictate. And their team is constructed so incredibly well, it's like they've got every possible piece a team might need in order to be a success. Every base is covered, all contingencies are planned for. Rather than a collection of basketball players, the San Antonio Spurs epitomize the meaning of a basketball *team*, and they are so professional, and so deadly, deadly efficient about what they do that it is really quite stunning. Their defense is absolutely smothering, they're overwhelming. So it was enjoyable to me to see one team so incredibly good...it's just a shame they didn't have a better opponent to line up against.

And that's no slur against the Cavs either. They deserve great kudos for even making it that far. It's just abundantly clear though- they desperately need to get more help for LeBron. He was trying SO hard to get his teammates involved, and I cannot even begin to count the number of times in this series he'd make the great read and great pass to find the wide-open player...only to have that guy toss up a brick or an airball.

But I love watching great players like LeBron and Parker and Duncan and Ginobili play, and there was a lot of great stuff in this series. I love Ginobili's cross-court bullet-passes to find the open man- I mean he throws that thing like a fricken ROCKET, to the point where the defense can't even begin to react, it's thrown so hard. It's just the little things like that, that can make a lousy series worth watching for me.

[Seano]

I also appreciate the Spurs because they seem such a likable team (flopping and bitching about calls aside- every team is doing that in the NBA nowadays. That's just become an unfortunate part of the game). But SA is a team filled with good guys and hard-workers, and they seem to display not even a hint of arrogance whatsoever. Rather, they simply express gratitude, and appreciation for each other as well as their coaches. They seem to genuinely like one another. They realize they are very, very good- but that's just their job, it's what they do....and it's not a result of randomness that they've become this good, it's that they've worked their asses off to do so.

They are impossible for me to dislike.