Just FYI, Monday’s Celtics game tips off at 6 p.m.
You may not have quite as much time to settle in to watch the Celtics after a hard day’s work as you are accustomed to.
Game 4 of the Celtics-76ers series on Monday in Philadelphia begins at 6 p.m., an unusual start time determined in part by the fact all four Eastern Conference semifinalists are in the Eastern time zone.
Several other factors were a factor in setting Monday’s game time, including arena conflicts, television contracts, and how first-round series played out.
The short explanation for Monday’s early tip is that the other Eastern Conference semifinal – between the Cavaliers and Raptors – had a 6 p.m. start on Thursday, followed by Celtics-76ers Game 2 at 8:30. Now it’s time to flip that script out of fairness. (Saturday’s Celtics-76ers Game 3, which started at 5 p.m., doesn’t count because it was a weekend day).
The full explanation is as follows:
The NBA’s television contract with ABC stipulates that the conference semifinals must end on Sunday, May 13, at the latest. The large Sunday audiences are valuable, so the ABC slot that day is reserved for a Game 7 of the conference semifinals or Game 1 of the conference finals.
So when Cleveland’s opening-round series against the Pacers went seven games, there was no real choice but to open the semifinal against the Raptors on Tuesday, May 1, because starting it later would make it impossible to conclude a seven-game series by May 13, unless games were scheduled on back-to-back nights, an option the league has avoided in the playoffs for many years.
The Celtics and 76ers, meanwhile, started their series on Monday, April 30, one day before the other Eastern Conference semifinal. That was ideal. But the schedule for the Bruins’ NHL playoff series against the Lightning already was locked in, and so TD Garden was taken on Wednesday, May 2. That left no real choice but for Game 2 of both Eastern Conference semifinals to be played on Thursday.
In cases like this, the league has considered staggering start times, with one game starting at 7 and the other at 8, giving fans more time to get to the arena, or back home in front of their televisions.
But the NBA has determined that allowing fans to view both games in full — particularly with all the online streaming options that exist — was preferred. The tipoffs could have been set at 7 and 9:30, but a league spokesman said the NBA decided that 9:30 is simply too late to start an Eastern Conference semifinal matchup.
If the Cavaliers/Pacers series had ended earlier, this would not have been an issue, because the ensuing semifinal could have started on an earlier date. Or, if the Bruins had lost to the Maple Leafs in the first round of the NHL playoffs, the timing would have worked out, too. Or, if the Bucks had defeated the Celtics, there would not have been a problem, because the 76ers did not have an arena conflict on Wednesday night, as the Celtics did.
If one of the teams playing in this series was located in a Central time zone — like the Bucks or Bulls — it also would have helped. But all four are in the Eastern time zone, and there is really nothing anyone can do about that. A league spokesman said the two semifinals series are swapping time slots for Game 4 to make it even for both sides.
But Games 5 and 6 are both slotted for weekdays, so depending on how long each series lasts, the awkward time slots could soon return.
