Offense takes a dive in finals

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Steve Kerr sat along the baseline Thursday, confessed to his occasional bouts with boredom during the NBA Finals and reminisced about the last time a championship series was tied 2-2.

It was 1997, the first time the Bulls played the Utah Jazz in the finals, and Chicago had lost two in a row after winning Games 1 and 2 at home.

"That was Michael's game when he was sick and we were down 16 or 17 in the second quarter. Things looked pretty bleak, and he picked us up and put us on his back."

Ah, the Jordan years. Back when scoring 90 points seemed possible.

The current NBA Finals bear almost no resemblance.

"We have definitely set back offensive basketball about 15 years, both teams," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said Thursday. "Both good defensive clubs going after each other, and shots aren't falling for either team."

Offensive basketball is sort of a double entendre in a series featuring steadily declining final scores and minuscule shooting percentages.

The Nets and Spurs have shown that they match up a little too well with each other, each team capable of neutralizing the other's strengths.

It certainly hasn't been as entertaining as what the Bulls did in the 1990s or what the Lakers did the past three years, but at least it's a whole new series now -- a best-of-three affair that'll either end Sunday or Wednesday night.

Game 5 is today at the Meadowlands, and history will be on the side of the winner.

Of the 22 previous times the finals have been tied 2-all, the winner of Game 5 has gone on to take the title 16 times -- a 73 percent success rate.

Since adopting a 2-3-2 format in 1985, there have been five championship series that were tied 2-2. The team with homecourt advantage won four of those times, and the winner of Game 5 has gone on to win the series three of five times.

"Last one that I remember was against Detroit, so I don't want to talk about that one," Nets coach Byron Scott said in reference to his playing days with the Los Angeles Lakers, who dropped Game 5 against the Pistons in 1988 before winning the final two games.

ABC earned an 8.7/14 Nielsen rating for Game 4, down 28 percent from last year's 12.0/20 for the last game of the Lakers-Nets series.

The finals have an average rating of 6.3 through four games. No finals since 1982 has finished with an average rating in single digits.