It's Up to Cavs and Warriors to Save the 2017 NBA Playoffs

As if the pressure to win a championship isn't enough, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors enter their third consecutive NBA Finals showdown on a joint mission they have no choice but to accept.

Their objective: rescue the 2017 postseason from itself.

Simple yet significant—and arguably more important than which team gets to hoist the Larry O'Brien Trophy amid a cascade of confetti and tears.

It's no secret the playoffs have failed spectacularly to please everyone. The ratings are great, so people are watching. But many of them aren't happy, or impressed, or on the faintest verge of being either.

"Neither the East nor the West has brought forth a worthy challenger to their respective reigning conference champs," the Sporting News' Sean Deveney opined. "There isn't much to be done to change that—the new [collective bargaining agreement] will be in place for at least the next six years. Competitive imbalance is an unavoidable reality in the star-driven NBA."

"Hibernating bears have experienced more suspense," the Chicago Tribune's Jerry Brewer quipped.

"Thank God for the NHL playoffs," TNT's Charles Barkley said after Golden State's 121-95 Game 4 elimination victory over the Utah Jazz in the second round (via Sportsnet's Michael Grange). "That's what I'd be watching in the back instead of these blowouts."

"Dynasties aren't new and aren't bad—the [Los Angeles] Lakers and the Celtics dominating the 1980s was fine, and the [Chicago] Bulls taking over the '90s is still historic, and who cares if the Lakers and the [San Antonio] Spurs won most of the titles in the 2000s," SB Nation's Tim Cato wrote. "We had a good time, didn't we? 

"But on the other hand, while dominance can be enjoyable to watch, it would be nicer if the Warriors and Cavaliers' trips to their third straight Finals against each other showed even a morsel of entertainment or uncertainty, not this sure thing we've seen coming since last August."

Different claims to disappointment. Different reactions. Identical frustration.

Ronald Cortes/Getty Images

Without plunging into the data, it feels like we've been treated to a parade of blowouts and preordained finishes. On top of that, we've been stripped of the privilege to watch some of the biggest names.

Kyle Lowry missed half of the Toronto Raptors' second-round sweep against Cleveland. Kawhi Leonard sat out the Spurs' series-clinching Game 6 win over the Houston Rockets in Round 2 with an ankle injury and then missed the last three games of the Western Conference Finals after Zaza Pachulia reaggravated that same injury in Game 1.

Isaiah Thomas suffered a hip injury, among other things, that didn't allow him to make it through Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Tony Parker tore his left quad in Game 2 of the second round. A broken right thumb forced a rejuvenated Rajon Rondo out of the first round after two appearances versus the C's—both Bulls victories.

So no, this postseason hasn't been pretty. But has it really been more unwatchable than any bracket in recent memory?

Yes and no.

Teams are winning games by an average of 13.5 points thus far. That's the second-highest margin since the league changed the first round to best-of-seven sets in 2003, but it's also lower than last year's mark of 14.5 (NBA Finals included).

Look only at the conference finals, and it's the same story. Boston, Cleveland and Golden State outscored the other side by roughly 19.4 points per 100 possessions during victories. While that's again the second-highest rate since 2003, it's lower than last year's combined average of 19.9.

Isolate just the conference champions, in this case the Cavaliers and Warriors, and nothing changes. Their net rating in wins during Round 3 fell short of last season's—and it wasn't that far away from the 2014 results:

Year	Avg. Conference Finals Net Rating During *Wins*
2016	22.3
2017	21.5
2014	19.2
2015	14.2
2013	13.6
2006	12.7
2012	12.5
2010	11.9
2007	11.6
2008	11.4
2003	11.2
2005	11
2004	9.8
2009	9.5
2011	8.1

Blowouts are not the issue—at least not a new one. The NBA is undergoing this transition in which teams are shooting more threes, but some still aren't launching enough. Margins of victory and per-possession differentials are bound to increase when a larger share of field-goal attempts are worth more and there remains a distinct variance among volume and efficiency.

Series length is a more reasonable, if slightly pressing, issue. It took 74 total games to wrap the first three rounds this year—fewest in the best-of-seven era:

Year	Games Played Before Finals
2014	84
2006	83
2003	82
2009	80
2008	80
2016	79
2012	79
2013	78
2005	77
2004	77
2015	76
2010	75
2007	75
2011	75
2017	74

Even this doesn't feel particularly damning. It has taken one more game to reach the NBA Finals three times before, and the 2015 postseason boasted only two additional tilts.

Maybe, then, general hostility is more about the conference finals. The Warriors swept the short-handed Spurs; the Cavaliers dispatched the Celtics in five tries.

Nine games out of a possible 14 is hardly a treat. And, yes, it's notably unsavory compared to years past.

Since 1984, when the Association expanded to its 16-team postseason format, only two other conference finals have failed to combine for fewer than 10 games. The kick: One of those years was 2015, when the Cavaliers took a broom to the 60-win Atlanta Hawks and the Warriors cruised past the Rockets. (The other year was 1986.)

It's fitting, then, that the Cavaliers and Warriors are tasked with saving the postseason. They're the reason people have lost faith in it.

Ben Margot/Associated Press

Those unhappy with the playoffs don't have an issue with the quality of games—not a brand-new gripe anyway. They take exception to the inevitability of that product and the end result it yields.

Another Cavaliers-Warriors series isn't the short end of the stick. There is legitimate interest in this meeting, even though we've seen it before. 

Each team has won a championship at the expense of the other. The Cavaliers erased a 3-1 lead in 2016. The Warriors countered by adding a top-five player to the best regular-season squad in NBA history. Just when you think that instills rampant hopelessness in the rest of the league, including the reigning champs, LeBron James happens. No one has totaled more points in the playoffs, and he's the only non-guard who places in the top five of total postseason assists. And this year, at the age of 32, is his best performance yet.

But the romanticism and mystique attached to the Cavaliers-Warriors rubber match will not survive a dud. It is the rare battle that has strung its own tightrope to walk across, somewhere between must-see TV and being part of the problem. 

Predictability is fine up until the end. That's when mystery and drama must prevail. If the Cavaliers and Warriors go nose-to-nose for seven games or deliver an epic six-contest war, what transpired beforehand will have been worth it or at least acceptable monotony.

Even then, when it's over, this championship-level back-and-forth will be diluted down to its repetition—a widespread feeling of So...now what? A fourth straight year of this?

And if this is a risk following a best-of-seven set that rivals last year's unfathomable series, imagine the reaction should the latest installment end in four, five or a lackluster six games. It won't be good. 

Tony Dejak/Associated Press/Associated Press

Kevin Durant already has to defend himself against those who believe his free-agency decision threw the NBA into this state of unflagging uniformity. That'll only get worse. The Warriors will be painted as a failure for ending the best three-year stretch in league history with just one title if they lose. The Cavaliers will have to endure a summer's worth of trade rumors if they're not up to Golden State's level; last season's triumph has not inoculated them against the reactive urgency affixed to James' prime.

"I'm going to be honest—I'm not in the right mind to even talk about Golden State," James said after winning his seventh straight Eastern Conference Finals," per ESPN.com's Brian Windhorst. "It's too stressful, and I'm not stressed right now."

Meeting the Warriors, again, is absolutely stressful. They're a great basketball team; championship chases are inherently nerve-wracking; and, equally important, both teams must make up for an entire season's worth of suspense.

The NBA playoffs are not suddenly Cleveland's and Golden State's to save.

But only because this responsibility has long lay with them.

Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale) and listen to his Hardwood Knocks podcast co-hosted by B/R's Andrew Bailey.

Stats courtesy of Basketball Reference or NBA.com. Team salary information via Basketball Insiders and RealGM.