NBA Playoffs 2012: 3 Things We Appreciate More About NFL After NBA Postseason

By all accounts, the 2012 NBA playoffs were a smashing success. 

There were good matchups throughout the path to the NBA Finals, and basketball's crowning series between the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder couldn't have been dreamed up any better. 

Even that LeBron James guy got his first championship ring. 

But for a population of NFL fans, the NBA playoffs can be a refreshing reminder of just how good following football can be. 

In the following three slides, we'll give you a couple of things NFL fans can appreciate more after watching the NBA playoffs. 

Officiating

We'll get the most obvious reason—the NBA's officiating—done right out of the gates. 

While the NFL doesn't have perfect officiating by any stretch of the imagination, few sports are as heavily criticized for their in-game referees than the NBA. These 2012 playoffs were no different. 

There were times during every step of the postseason—opening round, conference finals, NBA Finals, you name it—where some of the NBA refs looked completely clueless.

I'll admit, officiating a basketball game is a difficult task. But some of the calls made in these playoffs were head-scratchers at best. It's a big problem for the NBA.

Consider that the NFL might have the best officiating in any major professional sport a blessing. 

Faster Postseason

I wouldn't have minded the Heat-Thunder NBA Finals going to seven games—or 21, for that matter—but my opinion likely isn't shared by most. That is especially true for football fans, who are used to watching a team win four—or even three—postseason games to become a Super Bowl champion. 

The Miami Heat had to play 23 games—nearly a third of a typical NBA regular season—on their way to winning the 2012 NBA title. That's simply too many games for one postseason.

By the time the never-ending playoffs do conclude, casual fans are ready for basketball to be over. 

The Importance of Every Postseason Game

In the NBA postseason, every qualifying team is awarded four losses before elimination in any given series. That's obviously not the case in the NFL, and it's another reason to love the way football's postseason is situated. 

Could the New York Giants have beaten the Green Bay Packers three more times in a seven game series last January? Probably, but the chances of a 15-1 team losing four of seven games is a much bigger stretch than the one-game upset New York pulled off on its way to a Super Bowl. 

What if the NBA was formatted like the NFL?

The Oklahoma City Thunder would have technically beaten Miami in the NBA Finals with a Game 1 win, but in reality, the Thunder wouldn't have even made the Finals. Oklahoma City lost in Games 1 and 2 to the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals. 

The NBA's current format obviously suits the sport better than a one-game series, but it does make you appreciate the suddenness of the NFL's one-loss-and-you're-out system.