So, Homecourt means something huh?

[Jimcs50]

I go back to all of the posters in here that wanted the Spurs to rest our older players and not worry about getting HCA. They said it was more important to have healthy players than worry about HCA throughout.

Well, looking at both East and West Finals this year, I think HCA is more important than any time in recent history.
Both Thunder and Celtics were all but buried by press and fans after games 2, but because of home cooking, both are not only alive, but have put both Miami and San Antonio into must win game 5s.

If SA can hold serve throughout WCFs, then it looks like HCA will be very important in Finals too, judging from how those two teams have played at home.

Spurs need to win tonight, and I feel much better with them at home.

[CosmicCowboy]

Damn glad this one was 2-2-1-1-1 instead of 2-3-2 like the finals.

[Obstructed_View]

Home court's not more important than health, but it's pretty damned important.

[thispego]

How many different ways can we say the same thing?

[Jimcs50]

Home court's not more important than health, but it's pretty damned important.

Yeah, but a lot of posters were all freaked out that if the starters played, then it was a done deal that they would be injured. The chances of injury are always there, but the chances were slim, and I felt that the Spurs needed HCA a lot more than there was a chance of injury.

[Jimcs50]

How many different ways can we say the same thing?

This is only I told you so thread.

:p:

[thispego]

This is only I told you so thread.

:p:

No one will respect it until the spurs win tonight, but I guess it's good you got the thread in before the win rather than after.

I was indifferent to the rest vs homecourt battle, but it's obvious we were able to accomplish both

[timvp]

The Bulls say Hi. HCA is important but not if you run your stars into the ground in the process.

[smaka]

At the beginning of the playoffs I though it doesn't really matter whether we have HCA against the Tunder or not. However right now I believe it is going to be the factor x for the Spurs. Thunder plays great at home plus their crowd is their sixth player.

I believe HCA will lead Spurs to the finals and .... :lobt:

[therealtruth]

The Bulls say Hi. HCA is important but not if you run your stars into the ground in the process.

Rose's injury was a freak accident. You can't protect against freak accidents. A player could play two minutes and get injured.

[timvp]

Rose's injury was a freak accident. You can't protect against freak accidents. A player could play two minutes and get injured.

Rose was injured all season. The torn ACL was about his sixth different injury.

[Budkin]

Rose was injured all season. The torn ACL was about his sixth different injury.

I still don't get how they got the #1 seed without him.

[Budkin]

Damn glad this one was 2-2-1-1-1 instead of 2-3-2 like the finals.

2-3-2 is bullshit and it needs to go away. It's not even relevant anymore.

[Matty2Cool]

its only important cause of OKCs crowd, when the spurs were raping everybody it was irrelevant

[cd98]

I still don't get how they got the #1 seed without him.

Without Rose they barely lost to the 76ers who barely lost to the Celtics who are currently tied with the favorites to win the Eastern Conference. Either the East is that deep or that weak...I believe the latter.

[Jimcs50]

At the beginning of the playoffs I though it doesn't really matter whether we have HCA against the Tunder or not. However right now I believe it is going to be the factor x for the Spurs. Thunder plays great at home plus their crowd is their sixth player.

I believe HCA will lead Spurs to the finals and .... :lobt:

HCA only matters on evenly matched teams, hence the non factor against Jazz and Clippers.

More times than not, the team with HCA win game 7s....and usually only evenly matched teams get to game 7.

Injuries happen, they can happen in first game of season, last game, and any time in betw. Had SA not had that 10 game win streak to pass Thunder in standings, we would all be shitting bricks right now trying to figure out how to win on their court.

[Budkin]

HCA only matters on evenly matched teams, hence the non factor against Jazz and Clippers.

More times than not, the team with HCA win game 7s....and usually only evenly matched teams get to game 7.

Injuries happen, they can happen in first game of season, last game, and any time in betw. Had SA not had that 10 game win streak to pass Thunder in standings, we would all be shitting bricks right now trying to figure out how to win on their court.

We probably would not even be in the WCF without the #1 seed.

[Durant 35]

Spurs 6-0 at home
Thunder 7-0 at home

[mingus]

Offensively oriented teams require HCA IMO. The offense doesn't flow as well on the road but at home it's unbelievable.

[KD4MVP]

In regards to Rose, just really bad luck.

And yes, HCA is huge, a Game 7 at home rather than on the road is big, refs, home crowd, role players play better at home, etc.

I don't like the 2-3-2 format either.

[Bartleby]

Rose's injury was a freak accident. You can't protect against freak accidents. A player could play two minutes and get injured.

But you can minimize the risk, as this recent interview suggests:


MARTIN: So your commitment to data, Mike, has gotten the better of you, I understand. You're running your own studies these days? What's going on?

PESCA: . . . I think all good scientific studies come from a question. And so, anyone who's been watching the NBA playoffs sees that there are all these players getting injured. In fact, the very first game of the Chicago Bulls' playoffs, Derrick Rose, last year's MVP, went down with an ACL tear - ruining the Bulls' season.

MARTIN: It was a dramatic moment, right?

PESCA: Yeah, I was a horrible moment. There he is writhing on the floor. You know, just a few hours, later in the Knicks game, Iman Shumpert goes down with the same injury. Other things we're in the Knicks season. But immediately people said - the fans of those teams, critics of the NBA - said, you know, this is a consequence of the lockout-shortened season.

So many games were compressed, the players were tired. And it was this fatigue that led to these injuries of the anterior cruciate ligament.

MARTIN: And you said to yourself, this must be true? Or you started asking questions?

PESCA: I immediately - I will tell you, I immediately - and I was on record 'cause I do a podcast, where sometimes I pop off about these things. I immediately said this is just a - people saying that are beholden to the very human need to find explanations for random activity. These ACL tears, they can happen at any time. They happen for a lot of reasons. It's pretty much random and you're trying to place blame, because blame makes us feel good.

And I had the NBA commissioner backing me up on that. And I had some doctors were quoted by the AP, like a doctor from the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, saying, yeah, there's no evidence that wear and tear, playing too much has a correlation with ACL injuries.

But, you know, other people were suggesting it might. So I said let's really look at this because there's never really been a study done of if fatigue causes ACL injuries on the highest level, among NBA players. Now, if it did, Rachel - I'm going to ask you.

MARTIN: OK.

PESCA: When, during a game or season, do you think we'd see more injuries?

MARTIN: Well, when players are more tired. Right, so at the end of the game or at the end of a season presumably.

PESCA: Yeah, exactly. And so, that's what I was wondering. And I'd never seen anyone say this. I'd never seen anyone identifying the fourth quarter as the danger zone for injuries. So I shot an email to Kevin Pelton who writes for Basketball Prospectus, and he does a lot of surveys and he also has a lot of numbers. I had some preliminary numbers.

I started looking up when in the game all these players were injured. And we published our results. And it turns out that, yeah, it does seem that the more you play and the more tired you are, the greater your chances for a torn ACL. I would say if there was one sentence that's the take away, it's that the five minutes of playing time where players are most likely to tear their ACLs comes between the 33rd and 39 minutes.

MARTIN: Really?

PESCA: In a 48-minute game, that's notable.

http://www.npr.org/2012/05/20/153132090/sports-injuries-a-look-at-the-data

[cd98]

2-3-2 format only exists because of the travel time between eastern and western conference teams. Teams have to travel significantly longer distances for road games.

[mudyez]

2-3-2 format only exists because of the travel time between eastern and western conference teams. Teams have to travel significantly longer distances for road games.

but we are living in the 21st century now!

[dbreiden83080]

If we win this series the HC will be the edge they needed.. OKC is just too good at home..

[ploto]

HCA can simply mean that you had the better record which means you should be the better team.