By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)
The 82-game NBA regular season is a long grind, during which great teams such as Miami and San Antonio have notably eschewed short-term results in favor of the bigger picture. Coach Gregg Popovich famously rests his aging San Antonio stars periodically throughout the season in order to keep them fresh, including one noteworthy night where he sent four of his players on a plane back to San Antonio rather than have them play a game in Miami, incurring the wrath of David Stern in the process. Miami adopted a similar philosophy this season with Dwayne Wade, one that paid dividends during these playoffs as the veteran guard has looked much healthier and been more effective on the court than this time a year ago. However, one importance of that regular season may come home to roost in these NBA Finals: the value of home court advantage.
The Heat made a point to say they didn’t care about needing home court advantage against the Pacers, and backed up that bravado by dispatching Indiana in 6 games in the Eastern Conference Finals. However, Miami may regret not pushing for the league’s best record now they are faced with a Spurs team against whom they needed 7 games (and home court advantage) to prevail against a season ago. While there is something to be said for a home crowd swaying some calls from the referees in favor of the home team, the biggest advantage of home court may be the impact it has on the role players.
It’s not as though when he hits the road LeBron James is going to stop being the best player on the planet, or Tony Parker will forget how to weave in and out of defense and make teardrop floaters in the lane. But the players surrounding the stars, the ones who may very well make or break a series in a battle between two evenly matched teams such as these, are often affected by where the current dogfight happens to be going down. The opposing playoffs crowds are incredibly hostile, the arena sight lines behind the basket are not nearly as familiar as the home building, and the player gets out of his normal routine throughout the day. All of these factors can mess with the consistency of those players who lack the consistency of the upper echelon players in the league, but can still break out for a big game at any given moment. A prime example of this is the play of Danny Green.
The above chart details the stats of Danny Green during this year’s playoffs. At home, Green has been a monster, shooting 58% from the field and 59% from three-point range. However, away from San Antonio, those numbers have plummeted to 38% from the field and 31% from three, with his plus/minus per game falling from +12.9 to -3.3. While acknowledging how imperfect a stat plus/minus is, the Spurs have been about 15 points better per game with Green on the court at home versus on the road. This playoff phenomena within Green’s play hasn’t been exclusive to the small sample size of the three series this year, as a similar effect took place in 2013.
The second chart details Green’s stats during the 2013 playoff run. Again, he shot 50% (FG%) and 56% (3PT%) at home, while dropping to 38% (FG%) and 39% (3PT%) on the road. After being a legitimate Finals MVP candidate midway through the Heat series last year, he shot a combined 2-19 in Games 6 and 7 in Miami, one huge factor in why San Antonio was unable to put that series away.
So while the future hall-of-famers on each side deservedly receive much of the attention, the guys taking the court around them can impact the game in a big way as well. When it comes to one of their lethal perimeter snipers in Danny Green, San Antonio should consider themselves lucky they’ll be defending the Alamo to begin these finals Thursday night.
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