NBA should shorten playoffs not regular season, games

(CNN)

The NBA experimented last Sunday in a game between the Brooklyn Nets and Boston Celtics, playing a 44-minute exhibition game instead of a regular 48-minute tilt.

Of course, it took less time - less than two hours.

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When asked about the shorter NBA game before it was played, both James and Nowitzki chimed in with a call to shorten the season.

"It's not the minutes, it's the games," James said. "The minutes doesn't mean anything. We can play 50-minute games if we had to. It's just the games.

"We all as players think it's too many games. In our season, 82 games is a lot."

LeBron James is wrong.

Dirk Nowitzki is wrong, too.

Especially when you consider that MLB plays 162 games, basically everyday for six straight months. We didn't even mention the 30 exhibition games in either Florida or Arizona.

No wonder Michael Jordan was taken aback by the comments from the current players.

The problem is with the NBA's playoff system.

Players think there's too many MEANINGLESS games, not games. That's where the issue comes in.

"I think you don't need 82 games to determine the best eight teams in each conference," Nowitzki said. "That could be done a lot quicker."

Somehow, 16 of the 30 teams - often times teams even with losing records - head to the postseason.

The playoffs also take two months to play. That's way too long. Games are spread out to appease the TV weekend schedule.

It wasn't always that way. In the 80s, the first round used to be a best-of-three series.

The NBA needs to turn back the clock for the playoffs.

It should be two out of three in the first round, five out of seven in the second round and a seven-game series in the conference finals and The Finals.

Imagine if the NBA would play the first round like college basketball's March Madness.

Let the teams with the eight worst records fight it out. Single game elimination would be thrilling for the NBA.

It would really shake up the mix for teams competing for a title. It would be unpredictable, to say the least.