Empty arenas may be good for Spurs on road trip.
With fans shut out, upcoming five-game road trip not as daunting
In any other season, in any other context, the AT&T Center would have gone wild.
With 29.9 seconds left in the Spurs’ 119-114 victory over Toronto on the day after Christmas, Lamarcus Aldridge rose for an offensive rebound amid a tangle of Raptors, then put back a bank shot that gave his team the goahead points.
Instead of the roar of 16,000 screaming Spurs fans, Aldridge’s crucial basket was greeted by the not-quite-as-raucous sound of 16 teammates clapping.
Home-court advantage in the era of COVID-19?
“I don’t think there’s any such thing anymore,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said.
That could be good news for the Spurs this week, as they leave town with a 2-4 record to embark on a five-game road swing.
The trip begins Tuesday and continues Thursday with games against the Clippers and Lakers in Los Angeles, where Lebron James and Kawhi Leonard could pose a problem for the Spurs.
A deafening Staples Center will not.
“Playing in an empty arena with just a handful of fans? It just isn’t the same,” Spurs center Jakob Poeltl said. “You don’t get the same atmosphere going.”
Early returns from across NBA bear that out. Heading into Monday’s slate of games, home teams were 41-49.
Three teams — Washington, Memphis and Oklahoma City — had yet to win a home game. Three teams — Milwaukee, New Orleans and Houston — remain unbeaten at home.
Since the opening of the AT&T Center in 2002-03, the Spurs have won 580 home games, tops in the NBA. The Spurs, though, are 1-3 at home this season, with the lone victory coming courtesy of Aldridge’s late putback against Toronto.
“I guess you still have somewhat of a home-court advantage, but it’s not anywhere close to what it usually is and it feels weird,” said Poeltl, whose team will also play a pair of games in Minnesota and one in Oklahoma City before returning home. “The games almost feel a little bit more sluggish at times because it is hard to generate that energy 100
percent of the time without having the fans behind you — or even against you.”
The lack of home-court advantage has worked both toward and against the Spurs’ benefit so far.
In their season-opening victory in Memphis, Ja Morant’s careerhigh 44-point effort felt muted without the Fedex Forum going nuclear in the background.
When the Spurs dropped consecutive games to the Lakers at the AT&T Center last week, it stands to reason they could have used a boost from a sold-out crowd behind them, howling for blood from the defending NBA champions.
That was true in the second game of the set on New Year’s Day, in which the Spurs led in the fourth quarter and were tied with a minute to go before falling 109103
“Obviously, not having the momentum from the crowd or the crowd impact makes a big difference,” Spurs guard Patty Mills said. “No question about it.”
In way, the absence of crowd noise is akin to what NBA players experienced in the Orlando, Fla., bubble last summer.
There, games rotated between a trio of courts at the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex. There were no crowds then, either. It was as if NBA players were playing in a top-secret AAU tournament.
Even so, “home” teams in Orlando won 56 percent of the regular-season seeding games — a split in line with a typical nonbubble season in the NBA.
In theory, with opponents traveling from market to market this season, home teams should begin to enjoy at least a bit better home-court advantage than was possible in Orlando.
“There is still something about being at home, being in your own bed, the locker room situation, that sense of knowing you are at home,” Mills said.
In light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, every logistic of an NBA road trip has changed.
There are protocols for getting on and off planes and buses, and for checking into and out of hotels, for getting in and out of arenas. The league has provided teams with a list of approved restaurants to host team meals on the road.
The NBA is also in the process of unveiling a contract-tracing plan that would require coaches, .players and traveling personnel to wear a device outside of games to alert them when they are within 6 feet of another person.
“There are a lot of things we’re not used to logistically,” Popovich said. “But we understand it’s important if we are going to have a season and keep everybody safe.”
Playing games in pin-drop quiet venues for now is a small price to pay to keep the NBA’S billiondollar business rolling.
The Spurs had pegged the New Year’s Day game against the Lakers as a target date for permitting fans back into the AT&T Center on a limited basis. Those plans were put on indefinite hold as COVID-19 case numbers in the Bexar County area continue to soar.
Now, the Spurs are heading out for another road trip that is a road trip in name only.
To Spurs guard Lonnie Walker IV, the NBA arenas the Spurs will visit in the week to come might as well be at the local YMCA.
“It’s just another gym,” Walker said. “I’m just ready to compete and play. I don’t care where we’re at or who it’s against. I’m just trying to get that (win).”
If and when the Spurs do break into the win column again, the only crowds going wild will be doing so in their own living rooms.