I could not get into it either. But I tend to agree with the various favoritism comments. But with a twist and it applies to all US Pro Sports.
I believe in the US, due to TV revenue, the Professional Orgs want playoffs to occur between Nationwide popular teams to maximize TV revenue. So they they want to avoid having 2 teams in the finals that will not generate nationwide ratings.
I have not watched any pro sports for decades. But going back, in basketball the 2 teams that generated huge ratings and buzz a long time ago were LA and Boston. I do not know what the "magic" teams combinations are now, but I am would not be surprised if the refs subtilely try to get the "popular" team to win.
I love whining about paywalls as much as the next guy, but I copied the URL into the "saved snapshots" search at archive.is and got this pretty quickly: https://archive.is/VgwLx
I believe in the US, due to TV revenue, the Professional Orgs want playoffs to occur between Nationwide popular teams to maximize TV revenue. So they they want to avoid having 2 teams in the finals that will not generate nationwide ratings.
I have not watched any pro sports for decades. But going back, in basketball the 2 teams that generated huge ratings and buzz a long time ago were LA and Boston. I do not know what the "magic" teams combinations are now, but I am would not be surprised if the refs subtilely try to get the "popular" team to win.