Doc Rivers wants playoff reform: 'I don't think divisions should carry weight'

A 56-win season and the third seed in the Western Conference may soon be rewarded with a seven-game opening-round series loss.

Life's tough for the Los Angeles Clippers, who had an unbelievable regular season but ended up opposite the San Antonio Spurs in the first round. The series has been unbelievable, but the fact that two of the three best teams in the conference are head-to-head to kick things off has rubbed some the wrong way.

That includes Clippers head coach Doc Rivers, who feels reform to the current playoff system is necessary:

"It's ridiculous that it's a first-round series," Rivers told Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports on Thursday. "That was the first thing Pop said to me before Game 1, and I said the same thing. But we both decided, 'What the hell, it is what it is.' But this is ridiculous.

" ... I don't think the division should carry weight. You can get a banner. All right, you win your division. Take the banner. If our record is better, (a division title) shouldn't supersede. That's a joke."

Rivers' issue is that the Portland Trail Blazers were guaranteed a top-four seed as the Northwest Division champions. Had the 51-win Blazers been seeded as their record would suggest, they would have been opposite the Clippers instead. 

The Spurs still would have had to deal with a road series against the Memphis Grizzlies, but that speaks more to the insane quality of the West than the current division structure. The conference imbalance is probably a larger issue than the division seeding, with the 45-win Oklahoma City Thunder missing the playoffs while the 38-win Brooklyn Nets made it in.

Commissioner Adam Silver has admitted that the playoff format needs tweaking and that the league has considered taking the top 16 teams, regardless of conference. Changes won't be coming until 2016-17 at the earliest, however, as the league needs to take a deeper look at the additional travel and fatigue impact any modifications would have.