What has happened to NBA home-court edge?
Visitors winning at a record pace
Road trips in the NBA these days are somewhere between dreadful and boring. Favorite restaurants are off-limits. Hanging out with friends or old teammates is difficult or impossible. Leaving the hotels for anything other than games and practices is pretty much a no-no, all in the interest of safety during the pandemic.
The plus side: There’s more winning than usual.
Home-court advantage this season in the NBA is basically nonexistent. Through Monday, home teams were winning 51.7% of the time — on pace to be the lowest such rate in NBA history.
The previous low was set last season, 55.1%. And the erosion of the home-court edge was becoming a thing even before teams went into the Walt Disney World bubble last summer; it wasn’t all because of the games that were played in Central Florida without fans. This will be the eighth consecutive season in which the homecourt win rate is below 60%, so the phenomenon is not new.
It’s just never been this pronounced.
“There is no home-court advantage in the NBA this season,” longtime NBA coach George Karl tweeted this past week. “The Away team may actually have the advantage on the road without opposing fans and energy.”
He’s not wrong.
There are some cities where it’s still very tough to win. Philadelphia was a leaguebest 29-2 in its building last season; the 76ers are a league-best 10-1 at home this season. Milwaukee was 28-3 at Fiserv Forum a year ago; the Bucks are 8-2 there this season.
Miami was 27-5 at home last season. So far this season, the Heat is 5-6, the most recent of those losses coming Monday when they wasted a 10-point lead in the final 2:47 of regulation and fell to Charlotte. Part of it is surely because the Heat has experienced significant roster depletion because of injuries and virus-related issues.
But Denver coach Michael Malone also pointed out that late nights socializing in the league’s stops that are bustling with nightlife — Miami, New York and Los Angeles would be among the places that apply there — aren’t possible right now.
“When a team goes to certain cities, there are always pitfalls, nightclubs and whatever you want to call it,” Malone said last week before his Nuggets routed the Heat by 27 points — the franchise’s biggest margin of victory at Miami since 1989. “Now you go to a city, there are not really as many distractions.”
There are some exceptions to the homecourt-doesn’t-matter theory.
Kyle Lowry has played in seven “road” games this season — they’re all road games this season for Toronto, really, even though Tampa has created some comforts of home for the Raptors — and his team has gone 0-7 in those games.
The lack of a home edge isn’t just an NBA issue, but it’s not universal either.
NFL teams technically had a losing record at home this regular season — 127128-1, the first time they’ve been below .500 since 1968. San Francisco went 0-3 at home games at a neutral site in Arizona, but even if those are taken out of the equation (and the home mark went back over .500) it was still the worst league-wide “home” record in those 53 seasons.
Baseball went the other way, and hockey is headed that way. Home MLB teams won at a .556 clip last season, the best percentage in a decade. NHL teams through Sunday have their best combined home record since World War II.
Tuesday games
RAPTORS 123, MAGIC 108: In Orlando, Fla., Fred VanVleet set a franchise record with 54 points and hit a career-best 11 3-pointers as Toronto beat Orlando.
VanVleet made 11 of his first 12 attempts from 3-point range. He finished 17 of 23 from the field and 9 for 9 at the free throw line to surpass the Toronto record of 52 scored by DeMar DeRozan on Jan. 1, 2018.
NETS 124, CLIPPERS 120: In New York, Kyrie Irving scored a season-high 39 points, including eight straight in the fourth-quarter run that sent Brooklyn into the lead for good as the Nets beat Los Angeles.
Kevin Durant added 28 points, and James Harden had 23 points, 14 assists and 11 rebounds.
PACERS 134, GRIZZLIES 116: In Indianapolis, Domantas Sabonis had a seasonhigh 32 points and 13 rebounds as Indiana beat Memphis, snapping the Grizzlies’ seven-game winning streak.
JAZZ 117, PISTONS 105: In Salt Lake City, Donovan Mitchell scored 32 points to lead Utah past Detroit. Mike Conley added 20 points for Utah.
TRAIL BLAZERS 132, WIZARDS 121: In Washington, Damian Lillard scored 32 points, and Gary Trent Jr. added 26 while hitting seven 3-pointers as Portland held on for a victory over Washington.
CELTICS 111, WARRIORS 107: In San Francisco, Jayson Tatum had 27 points as Boston beat Golden State.