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The ratings support the idea that there is fatigue around the first round of the playoffs. Through the first two weeks of the 2019 postseason, the numbers were down by 18 percent. Of course, part of the reason for the decline is the nonappearance of the sport’s biggest star, LeBron James, whose Lakers didn’t make the playoffs, causing him to be absent from the postseason lineup for the first time in more than a decade. But the ratings did bounce back in the second round, as ESPN boasted its highest second-round TV ratings since 2012, indicating that fans are still compelled to tune in to more competitive matchups.

The solution may lie in changing the playoff format itself. Under what’s called a “skunk rule,” higher seeds automatically move on to the second round if they win the first three games of the first round. In this scenario, if a lower-seed team wins any of a series’ first three games, then the series will be a traditional seven-game series. The skunk rule would potentially make Game 3 in the first round an elimination game, upping the drama early in a series.

Up until 2003, the NBA’s first round was a best-of-five series. The reason for the change to seven was twofold: More games equals more money for the league. And extending the first round lowered the chance that a better team would get eliminated in the first round, since five-game series were more competitive than their seven-game replacements. In a five-game series, Games 3 through 5 are must-win games. According to a 2010 study by the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective, the favored team had a 76.56 percent chance of winning a five-game series, as opposed to an 81.25 percent chance of winning a seven-game series.

Now, with the seven-game format, higher-seed teams have to win two home games and two road games in a row to sweep a series—a task that’s far more difficult based on how much harder it is to win on the road (having home-court advantage boosts a team’s chances of winning by as much as 14 percent in the playoffs). What’s more, the NBA has recently seen several stars go down to injury at crucial moments in the playoffs—Chris Paul in last year’s Conference Finals, Leonard in the 2017 Conference Finals, Steph Curry in 2016, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love in 2015, and so on. The league has lucked out by not having an entire NBA Finals devastated by a team’s top star being hurt, but it’s playing with fire by piling on grueling minutes. With a skunk rule, top teams that win the first three games and sweep the series could rest up for the remainder of the run, lessening the chance of devastating late-playoffs injuries.

If the league wants to preserve player health and keep fans engaged and happy, then it needs to explore some outside-the-box solutions. There are opportunities to shorten the length of the playoffs—and they start with the first round. By June, nobody will miss those games anyway.