mal wrote:How does the finals system of games work ?
What are the advantages for the teams that finish top, top 2, top3, or top4 ?
The higher you finish means you have home court advantage against a lower ranked opponent in the finals.
The way the playoffs/finals work is the Top 2 teams get automatic entry in the semi-finals with home court advantage over their opponents, the SF series are Best of 3 games. Teams 3-6 now as of the new system started last season play in 'Play-In' games to determine entry into the SF's. The Play-In games are single games I think it's 3 vs 4 , winner goes into one SF the loser gets a double chance. 5 vs 6 is single elimination the loser is out the winner goes on to play the loser of 3 vs 4 in a third Play-In game to determine the other SF opponent. The two winners of the Best of 3 games SF series advance to the Grand Final series which is Best of 5 games. Teams that finish the regular season 7-10 obviously don't qualify and their seasons are over.
It's a bit convoluted now but probably better than the previous longstanding finals system of only the Top 4 teams qualifying and the rest their seasons are over. It was one thing when it was an 8 team league but once SEM Phoenix came in as the 9th team and then Tassie as a 10th team something had to change.