Sharing the Playoffs: NBA and NHL

I've always enjoyed how the NBA and NHL playoffs overlap. The leagues also share arenas.

I started thinking about the potential for 2 series across sports to be played simultaneously in shared arenas (ie New York is playing Boston in the same round of the playoffs in both sports in the same arenas.)

First we need to breakdown the teams. There are three categories of shared arenas:

Eastern Conference Arenas

Knicks/Rangers
Celtics/Bruins
76ers/Flyers
Wizards/Capitals
Raptors/Maple Leafs
Nets/Islanders
Pistons/Red Wings

Western Conference Arenas

Nuggets/Avalanche
Clippers or Lakers/Kings
Mavericks/Stars

NBA Eastern/NHL Western Arenas

Bulls/Blackhawks

- - -

Because the Chicago teams are in separate conferences (and they don't have a West/East counterpart) they're useless to this exercise and can be ignored.

Hypothetical Limit

There are 15 playoff series in each league. (7 in each conference plus the championship)

With 3 cities in the West, there could be 2 on that side. With 7 cities in the East, there could be 6 series on that side. Plus the championship makes 9 series.

(Another way of looking at it. 10 sharing cities means in a field of 16, there are 6 non-sharing cities. Subtract those 6 from the 15 playoff series, makes 9 shared series.


2019 Hypothetical Limit

Here are the cities where both teams made the playoffs this year:

Denver
Boston
Toronto
Brooklyn

So 4 sharing cities. 12 non-sharing cities. Theoretical limit this year based on just the list of playoff teams was 3 series in shared arenas. (two series pairing up the three teams in the East, and then a East vs West)

In the NBA, the first possible meeting of these cities would be Nets-Raptors in the second round. But Maple Leafs and Islanders wouldn't meet until the third round (Conference Finals).

Boston could meet either NBA team in the Conference Finals...and the Bruins could meet the Islanders in the Conference Finals.

So that's our first possibility this year: Celtics vs Nets AND Bruins vs Islanders. Both in the Conference Finals with all games being played at TD Garden and Barclays Center.

The other possibility this year is Denver vs Boston/Toronto/Brooklyn in the Finals.

- - -

I started down this path thinking about arenas, but really it's not so much the sharing arenas that's the neat part as the sharing cities in the same round. Like it's about the fan bases, not the buildings.

For example, the Wild and Timberwolves both play in Minneapolis/St. Paul but not in the same arena. But if the Wild were playing the Bruins for the Cup while the Timberwolves were playing the Celtics in the Finals, it's basically the same effect, even if they're playing in separate buildings when they're in Minnesota. (I mean, part of why I thought the sharing arenas thing was cool was the scheduling aspect, but the shared fan base thing is still cool.)

So if you expand to consider those, you could include Panthers/Heat, Wild/Timberwolves, Sharks/Warriors, Coyotes/Suns, Ducks/Lakers-Clippers.

For this year, the only market that adds is the Bay area. In fact, Avs could play the Sharks next round and Nuggets and Warriors were top 2 seeds, but wouldn't meet until conference finals.

So now I'm curious, has there ever been a simultaneous series between cities?

When you Google it, the results are focused individual cities making the Finals in multiple sports at the same time, which happens occasionally. But Nets vs Spurs while Devils vs Ducks isn't what I'm after.

I'd even be curious if I expanded the simultaneous restriction to same year. Because it would suck to get knocked out of the playoffs by the same city twice in the same year...