Home Court Advantage

I am boggled by the fact that the home team is 20 and 1 in the NBA playoff conference semi-finals this year. The pistons managed to win a game on the road over a greatly overmatched Orlando team, but that is it. The mighty Celtics haven’t won a road game in the playoffs yet, but none of the games played at the garden have even been close, the Cs have won big every time. This has been indicative of the whole NBA playoffs; not only are teams not winning on the road, they are taking turns blowing each other out by 10 and 20 points, only to go to the other team’s house three days later and reverse their fortunes. Commentators keep on telling me that the Spurs and the Hornets are such a great matchup, but all six of the games have been blown wide open in the third quarter, and, like all of the Celtic’s games, none of them have had a remotely competitive fourth quarter.

What is going on here? Is home court advantage really worth 10-20 points a game? If so how? While playing sports in high school, I never felt a serious home court advantage. A few extra voices chanting for your team never seemed to affect my performance very significantly. If anything, I would get nervous if whatever girl I happened to like at the time was in the crowd causing me to perform worse. Admittedly I never competed in front of huge crowds, either home or away, but don’t think it would affect my performance much.

The NBA must somehow be different… perhaps the sheer decibel level of 20,000 people closed in a small box really does have an effect on opposing team’s ability to communicate. I wonder what a playoff series would look like if it were played at a neutral stadium, or traveled around neutral stadiums kind of like the superbowl or the champion’s league final. I like the loyalty that the NBA builds in cities for its teams, but I wonder if we would get some close games again if games were played in neutral locations. I’m not calling for the experiment just yet: I’m guessing – and hoping – that this year is just a fluke, but if things don’t change we need to do something to get some close basketball games again.