The home advantage of the playoffs is disappearing. Who has changed the league again?

Throughout the season, NBA teams have been struggling to compete to gain the best position in the playoffs. They have gone through 82 games in the regular season and strive to achieve the best record. If a team is good enough, they can have a home advantage in one round, two rounds, or even the entire playoffs. This is an attractive motivational factor for each team because it makes their struggle worth it, not to mention being able to play a crucial tiebreak in front of home fans.

But what if the home advantage is losing its appeal? In the second round of this year's series, the Cavaliers, Celtics, Timberwolves and Thunder all suffered home defeats. It seems extreme, but it is also part of a trend in the NBA in recent years.

Now, there is no longer an advantage in home games as it used to be. As of May 8, US time, NBA teams have only 26 wins and 24 losses at home in the playoffs. This is the lowest winning rate in the playoffs since 1981 (the 2020 playoffs were played in the Quarantine Bubble Park).

In the 1981 NBA playoffs, the winning rate of the home team was less than 50%, which seemed just an outlier at the time. The second year, the home team's winning rate in the playoffs reached about 60%, and has rebounded every year since then, which is basically in line with historical trends. In fact, in the first 78 playoff seasons, home teams have won at least 60% in 56 seasons.

But this has not been the case recently. Since the 2018 playoffs, home teams have not won more than 60%, although they are close to this figure in 2022.

In these decades, the home advantage is gradually disappearing under the most critical situation - the tiebreaker. In the past, high-seeded teams had a life-and-death battle at home, as if they had a guarantee. In the first 73 seasons of the league, the home team had a winning rate of 79.1%. Since 2021, the home team has only 5 wins and 10 losses in the tiebreak. The Warriors also won the tiebreak in Houston, which is not surprising.

Of course, Warriors head coach Steve Cole was not surprised by the trend. His shift in his perception of the value of home court advantage reflects the reality of the league.

In 2018, when the Warriors made their third championship in four years, Cole said that gaining a home advantage in the playoffs was his top goal. Last month, he said disapprovingly: "I don't know if the home advantage is still as important as before." Kerr said, "I think three-pointers are a big variable. It feels like in the past, the game has been more of a fierce confrontation with two-pointers. It is unlikely that the opponent suddenly feels hot and controls the momentum of the game."

As Kerr said, the three-pointers undoubtedly have an impact on the changes in the league structure. The home advantage began to weaken in the 2016-17 season, when the NBA was in the midst of a three-point revolution and has not recovered since then as the number of three-point shots continued to increase.

In recent years, the visiting team's more three-pointers have been associated with a higher winning rate. In this year's playoffs, the away team, who scored at least one more three-pointer than the home team, had a record of 12 wins and 9 losses, with the same winning rate as last spring.

For the visiting team, it is also more important to score more three-pointers. This may sound obvious, but it has not always been the case in the past. However, with the number of three-point shots in the league, three-pointers became an important part of each team's shooting statistics and had a significant impact on the game, and winning in the three-point battle became a key factor in eliminating home advantage.

In the four playoffs before the Warriors and Stephen Curry dominated the league, the away team scored at least one more 3-pointer than the home team, the winning rate was 46.2%. During the last four seasons before the playoffs affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the away team scored at least one more three-pointer than the home team, with a winning rate of 55%. Since 2022, the away team has scored at least one more three-pointer than the home team, with a winning rate of 60.9%.

At least in this playoffs, this trend may be a comfort for those championship teams who are unexpectedly at a disadvantage in the second round of the series. If the home advantage is no longer that strong for them, it means they can also turn defeat into victory and take victory from their opponents. The value of home court advantage has also changed.