I was ready to do my own research into how teams without homecourt advantage have fared historically after coming back to tie a best-of-seven series 2-2, but John Hollinger beat me to it. (“Spurs have momentum on their side, but little else.”)
If stats impress you, you may not want to read any further. Personally, I think this is interesting, but not entirely relevant to what has happened in this series.
What would you say is the likelihood of San Antonio’s winning the series? Most of you would probably give an answer somewhere around 50 percent. I suppose a few of you might go as high as 80 or 90 percent. Even a Hornets fan might tell you 30 or 40 percent.
So it might shock you to learn what the historical data says. Depending on what aspect of history you wish to emphasize most, the Spurs’ chances come in somewhere between 0 and 17.5 percent.
Huh? How can this be? Let’s take a look.
For starters, we can look at the history of teams that won Games 3 and 4 after dropping the first two games in a best-of-seven series. You’d think since they’d won two straight games and turned it into a best-of-3, they’d have had a pretty good shot. You’d also be wrong.
Since the NBA-ABA merger, the “road” team has won the series only 17.5 percent of the time in best-of-7s when the home team won the first four games — seven out of 40. Five of them came in the past four years, which tricks us into thinking it’s more common than it really is: In the two decades prior, it happened only twice.
In conference semifinals, the team with home-court advantage wins 79.2 percent of the time. But in best-of-7s in which the home team wins the first four games, that number improves to 82.5 percent.
