Los Angeles vs Atlanta Postseason Notes

Yesterday, I cited the fact that tonight’s wild card clash between the Los Angeles Rams and Atlanta Falcons, will be the first between the two franchises.

The cities have met in six previous entities, two each in the NHL, NBA and Major League Baseball.

Both NHL series were best of 3 preliminary round clashes, both baseball were best of 5 quarterfinals/division series and both NBA match ups were best of seven semi-final series.

Tonight is a best of one and one/I (maybe a few others) wonder if any other two cities have this history even a best of 1, best of 3, best of 5 and best of 7, covering the 4 major North American Sports leagues, no less in a truly symmetrical pattern.

L.A. favored by 6 points tonight, has won 5 of the 6 series.

The NHL L.A. Kings won 2 straight from the Atlanta Flames,( now in their 37th season as the Calgary Flames, parenthetically to say the least, a Georgia college team will attempt to win a title 37 years apart this Monday night, something only the Yankees have done in baseball (’41 and ’78), (’61 and ’98, two great Yankees’ teams, but please the ’98 team, no matter their record, were not nearly as good as the ’61 team) and ’62/’99), in ’76 and in 3 games in ’77 in NHL best of three preliminary series.

Getting an individual name in there; Butch Goring, who later played on the 4 straight New York Islanders’ Stanley Cup champions from (1980-1983), had three goals, one an empty net tally, in the decisive third game Kings/Flames in 1977.

The Atlanta Braves swept the Dodgers in 3 straight games in a 1996 “quarter”/division series. “L.A.” won three games to 1 in a 2013 “version.”

The L.A. Lakers won semis from the Atlanta Hawks, oddly as was the case with other Atlanta teams then in the Western Conference, in both ’69 and ’70, losing but one game in the two best of seven series, that in 1969.

So 3 sweeps, all by L.A. teams, one in each sport in which the cities have clashed and three series won by a team, with one loss.

Tonight one loss means ouster. None of the six L.A./Atlanta series winners “titled,” the Lakers twice and the Braves once losing in final rounds.

Both Kings’ prelim series wins vs the Atlanta Flames were followed by “quarters” losses to the Boston Bruins, while the Dodgers were felled by the St. Louis Cardinals, after their division series win, vs the Braves.