It's time to change the NBA tournament tiebreakers

During the fourth quarter of the Boston Celtics' blowout win over the Chicago Bulls, the Celtics employed the "Hack-A" strategy against Bulls center Andre Drummond, a notoriously poor free-threw shooter (47.6 percent for his career). Intentionally fouling a poor shooter isn't new, but doing it while leading by more than 30 points certainly is.

The reason was that Boston needed to win by at least 23 points to advance to the next round of the in-season tournament. Coach Joe Mazzulla was uncomfortable running up the score, as was star Jaylen Brown, who told reporters, "It's tough because that's just not how the game is supposed to be played. You've got to respect your opponents."

The Golden State Warriors may have cost themself a win by focusing too much on the tournament. Needing to win by 12 points or more, they played unusually aggressively with a big lead against the Sacramento Kings, and ultimately lost the game in the final seconds.

On TNT, Candace Parker had an elegant solution. Since tournament games count for the regular season, why not use regular-season standings as the tiebreaker?

While it might make the final day of the tournament less exciting and weird, switching from point differential does seem like it would spare feelings. Because as it is now, the tiebreakers mainly incentivize bad sportsmanship. Running up the score on the final night might be more fun for fans, but as Andre Drummond would likely agree, it also looks ugly.