Urgent question

[shachaf]

The spurs and the heat might meat each other at the finals( The spurs will sweep phoenix on monday night), and the both teams had a record of 59-23 and 1-1 in the matches at the regular season. Who will have the home advantage?

[maes]

I believe the Spurs, that level of tie breaker is record vs the opposing conference...Spurs beat eastern conf teams more than Miami beat west conference teams (not surprising).

[shachaf]

And i'm not sure the home advantage is better for the team who owns it.
Detroit beat the lakers 4-1 with only one win at the road, and if the heat take all 3 games at home the spurs will have a lot of presure at the 6th game.

Detroit also is a strong team, but to stop there offense would be much easier( In series between spurs and pistons there might be a few games with a score of 60-70 points both teams)

[Matt]

i think having home court advantage is a DISADVANTAGE in the Finals. If you win both games then you've just held homecourt and still have to win on the road. But if you lose a game then you have 3 on the road.

Basically you have to be ready from game one. I get the feeling that if the Suns Spurs started in SAS then we would be looking at a different result. The spurs would have held home court and Suns would be feeling confident returning home.

[shachaf]

I think you meant that if you lose one game at home you have to win one game at the road to have back the home advantage( 3 if you want to finish the series)/

[Sauru]

spurs will play detroit in the finals so this question is pointless anyway.

[cklitsie]

spurs will play detroit in the finals so this question is pointless anyway.

You hope they will, but nothing has been decided yet, so it's not pointless. I'm not a Heat or Spurs fan in any way though.

[Sauru]

nah i dont hope anything, i just believe the pistons to be a much better team. if i am wrong so be it. once the celtics get eliminated(or miss) the playoffs i always root for a team i think deserves to win. detroit and the spurs already got thier rings so i wont root for them. i hate shaq so i wont root for him, but at the same time i like ZO and would like to see him win one. if the suns won it all i would actually enjoy that, but unless they pull off the never-before-done then that wont be happening. in the end it will be the spurs hoisting up the big golden ball just like i(and many others) said at the start of the season.

[cyanide]

i think having home court advantage is a DISADVANTAGE in the Finals. If you win both games then you've just held homecourt and still have to win on the road. But if you lose a game then you have 3 on the road.

My sentiments exactly. It'd be tough to win three in a row on the road, even if they're the highest seed and unprepared in the first game.

[Andrew]

But most teams play better at home, thus the homecourt advantage places them in a good position to head to their opponent's floor up 2-0. From there on, they only need to win 1 of 3 on the road then they've got two chances to clinch it again on their home floor.

Just to throw some numbers out there, since the 2-3-2 format in the Finals series was implemented in 1985, the series has gone at least six games (ie gone back to the venue of the team with homecourt advantage) 12 times, with the team holding homecourt advantage winning 9 of those times.

Teams that go up 2-0 generally go on to win the championship as well, so while I agree the three consecutive road games somewhat negates the home court advantage, history suggests the 2-3-2 format works in the favour of the team that starts the series at home.