Scary away from home
‘Kids’ shrink at hostile sites
In some ways, this Celtics-Wizards series defies analysis or description but maybe what’s going on is as simple as this: these guys are all homebodies who get tummy aches when not sleeping in their own beds.
Maybe the Celtics and the Wizards have two rosters full of tall kids who, on the inside, are like 8-yearolds away at overnight camp for the first time. They miss their own pillow.
As illogical as that sounds it makes as much sense as any other explanation for not only what happened Wednesday night in Game 5 at the Garden but what’s happened between the two of them all season long. In the case of both these flawed teams, when they go off for a sleepover they need their parents to come pick them up before midnight.
How else to explain the Celtics winning at home three times by double-digit margins (12, 10 and 22) and the Wizards slapping that same team around twice on their own court by 27 and 19 points respectively? The Wizards can go all Dan Duquette on the world and claim in the first four games they led over 70 percent of the time if they want, but the truth of the matter is away from home they melt when it counts nearly as much as the C’s do when they arrive in D.C.
The average margin of victory in the first five games was 18 — and all for the home team. Take these guys on the road and they can’t find their way to victory with GPS and NASA’s radar equipment.
What’s oddest about this is that unlike football, hockey and baseball there is no true home-field advantage in basketball beyond staying in a luxury hotel rather than in your own “crib.”
There are no ill winds blowing across the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field or thin air at Mile High Stadium with which to contend. There is no grass allowed to grow extra-long or watered-down sidelines or heaters on only one side of the field.
There are no quirky nooks and crannies either, no Green Monster in one arena and vast outfield expanse in another. There is no slow grass here and fast turf there.
The court is the same dimensions in every NBA arena. The rim is the same height, too. Unlike other sports, basketball is played pretty much under the same controlled conditions everywhere they go now that Red Auerbach can’t turn the heat up to 120 degrees in the visitors’ locker room or shut off the hot water so that taking a shower in the old Garden became akin to joining the polar bear club.
So why, game after maddening game, do the Celtics (and the Wizards, but who cares about them?) look like one team at the Garden and a nearly unrecognizable imitation at the Verizon Center?
Clearly Celtics coach Brad Stevens doesn’t know or he would have done something about it by now but the pattern of win here and lose there is clear. It’s what happened in the regular season between these two and through the first five games of the postseason. Why would it change now?
Some would blame officiating but the truth is it stinks in every NBA arena so while that might affect a particular game it wouldn’t account for the dramatic swings between these two teams all season long.
Very likely nothing will change tonight either but after blowing out the Wizards in Game 5 both shortand long-term history are now at least on the side of the Celtics … if you consider having to face the imposing Cleveland Cavaliers next in the conference finals a positive.
Not only has Washington in any of its iterations not won a playoff game in Boston since 1982, and would have to do so Monday night to win the series (assuming the Celtics continue the homesick blues at the Verizon Center in Game 6) but the Game 5 winner has won its playoff series 83 percent of the time over the NBA’s long history. So, if you’re a gambling man, bet on the location of the arena and not the teams inside of it from here on out and you’ll cash a lot of tickets.
Whether the Celtics can punch out the Wizards on the road tonight and get some much needed rest before facing the defending NBA champions (who are undefeated in the playoffs this year and apparently not suffering from homesickness) remains to be seen. I wouldn’t bet on it but I wouldn’t bet on the Wizards to still be playing basketball next weekend either unless it’s a pick-up game because they need a binky when they come to the Garden as much as the Celtics do when they walk into Camp Verizon for the night.