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Pray for HCA if not your little team is toast!
Is it really so bad? Granted, it's always nice to have a game 7 on your own floor, especially with how packed the west is, but I kinda like the idea of SA opening a series on the road, because I think they'd be fantastic at getting the split to kick off a series.
I don't know, maybe I'm to used to all of those recent PHX playoff matchups.
Obviously, the team should win out and get as much HCA as possible, but for some reason, should we have to open a series on the road, I am not fretting too much.....I don't think.
Thoughts?
Pray for HCA if not your little team is toast!
But if we do get HCA, then we'll be fine though, right?
Pray your team can accomplish something meaningful this postseason. If not their toast!!!
Plain and simple win 16 games or you team is toast
HCA is quite meaningless in a 7 games series and even more for a vet team like Spurs.
I don't really care about HCA. What is important is being healthy, well rested and having a not too hard first round matchup.
What worry me the most is being healthy. Playoffs start in 10 days and Horry and Barry are still out.
I wouldn't be against Spurs tanking their last couple of games to get an easier playoff matchup even if it means losing HCA.
I always prefer homecourt.
HCA is not meaningless, especially this year. Do you want to try to beat Utah w/o HCA??? I will bet you that nobody beats Utah this year w/o HCA.
Spurs will need #1 seed or 2 seed to get out of the West, because they have been quite ordinary on the road this year and really less than average against teams with winning records on the road. In years past, the Spurs were one of the best road teams in the league, this year, they are one of the worst road teams in the West playoffs. One exception to Spurs having a so-so road record and still getting out of West was 05, when they opened on the road at Phoenix and won both games, winning the series in 5 games. That will not happen this year.
Last edited by Jimcs50; 04-09-2008 at 08:48 AM.
I take Utah without HCA over Dallas or Phoenix with HCA in a heartbeat.
The rest of your post is just too far fetched for me.
First, I don't think that Spurs being so-so on the road during the regular season mean that Spurs will be so-so on the road during playoffs.
Second, Spurs' team is almost the same than last year. Maybe they are worse/better than last year but I don't see a logical reason why the drop off/improvement will be bigger on the road than at home. I think that the fact that Spurs have lost 4 more games on the road than last year isn't a big deal at all .
I am not talking about Utah w/o HCA, I said Utah with HCA is unbeatable.
As I said, the Spurs history is that if they have a so so record on the road during the season, they do not fair well in playoffs on the road, with the lone exception I already mentioned. But in 05, their home record was so damn good, best ever, that they put pressure on their opponents to hold serve at home because nobody could feel like they could win in SA, so their road record was not as big a deal.
Look it up, the facts speak for themselves.
If SA does not get split is first 2 games on the road w/o HCA, they are toast this year, that is this man's opinion.
The #1 issue with the Spurs even being slightly worse than last year could be huge, seeing as how the rest of the West has vastly improved. Last year, we'd be begging for a matchup with NO, UTA, and probably even the Lakers.
This season, you gotta add those teams with brutal matchups with Dallas and Phoenix.
I would like to believe SA has an extra gear come playoff time, and I do think they have the ability to focus more on the road come playoff time, but I think this week with big games against PHX (who are on a b2b, so a loss at home would almost be inexcusable this time of year) and the road game at LAL will be crucial to see where this team is in regards to gearing up for the playoffs.
The Spurs can win anywhere anytime...
That being said... HCA is always a bonus.
When I say "without HCA", it's without HCA for Spurs.
Let's look at road records :
04-05 : 20-21 during the regular season, 7-5 during the post season.
05-06 : 29-12 during the regular season, 2-4 during the post season.
06-07 : 27-14 during the regular season, 7-2 during the post season.
Numbers speak by themselves...
good call, Bruno
I think HCA is important, but not THAT much. In the end, if we want to go to the finals, we gotta beat good teams on the road, even Utah (who looks like a team that we'd lose to every time we played in Utah). With no back-to-backs, Pop and his staff are amazing at adjustments throughout a series, so I trust that will work out fine when playing on the road.
It would be nice to have HCA at least for the first round though, that would mean we're a 5/6 seed, which I don't prefer.
I think it would be ideal to have home court for as long as possible; ideally all the way through the West playoffs. But I also agree that this group has been better about winning on the road in the playoffs during the championship era. Past seasons don't mean much this time around, but the guts of this group have been pretty much exceptional on the road during the playoffs since 2003:
2003 v. PNX (2-1), v. LAL (1-2), v. DAL (3-0), v. NJ (2-1) -- 8-4
2004 v. MEM (2-0), v. LAL (0-3) -- 2-3
2005 v. DEN (2-0), v. SEA (1-2), v. PNX(3-0), v. DET (1-2) -- 7-4
2006 v. SAC (1-2), v. DAL (1-2) -- 2-4
2007 v. DEN (2-0), v. PNX (2-1), v. UTH (1-1), v. CLE (2-0) -- 7-2
(bold = Spurs did not have HCA in series)
That's 26-17 over a 5 year span. I'm going to try to figure out what the general winning percentage of NBA road teams is in playoff games, but I'm guessing it's not very close to the Spurs' 60% clip.
I suppose that the numbers, as much as anything, say that the le winning teams were exceptional on the road while those teams that came up short weren't; and there's probably some correlation. But I also think that those numbers are quan ative proof that this group has seen just about everything that can be thrown at an NBA team and has generally had good success on the road during that time.
Their championship history and pedigree dictates they can win on any team's court. I wouldn't be too worried about it.
I did some research and came up with an absolutely fascinating number. Since 1997-98 (the beginning of the Tim Duncan era), road teams in playoff games win right about 36% of the time, league-wide. The interesting number is this one, though: in that time (10 playoff seasons) there is only one franchise that has a winning record in road playoff games -- San Antonio:
Code:W L PCT SA 39 31 0.557 LAL 29 33 0.468 NJ 19 22 0.463 NY 12 16 0.429 CLE 8 11 0.421 IND 21 30 0.412 CHI 8 12 0.400 MIA 14 21 0.400 DAL 16 27 0.372 PNX 13 22 0.371 DET 20 36 0.357 SAC 12 23 0.343 LAC 2 4 0.333 PHIL 10 21 0.323 NO 8 17 0.320 BOS 5 12 0.294 PRT 7 17 0.292 MIL 6 17 0.261 UTH 9 26 0.257 MIN 5 17 0.227 HOU 3 12 0.200 SEA 3 12 0.200 TOR 3 12 0.200 WAS 2 8 0.200 DEN 2 10 0.167 GST 1 5 0.167 ORL 2 10 0.167 ATL 0 6 0.000 MEM 0 6 0.000 279 496 0.360
^ add another nice stat to the list of accomplishments in the TD era. Good work, FWD.
Awesome work, FWD
I do think HCA is a big deal. The Western Conference is so stacked that HCA could be the biggest factor in each series. Obviously, it's not impossible for the Spurs to go out on the road and win a series but it's definitely harder. All you have to do is lose Game 1 on the road and then suddenly you face about three consecutive must win games.
Plus, HCA is good for the Spurs because the team has been dominant in Game 5's at home. Those games are usually the turning point in the series. The only one they've lost in recent memory is the Derek Fisher game, IIRC.
While a team like the Jazz or even Hornets should be more desperate for HCA than the Spurs, I don't think HCA is something for the Spurs to take for granted.
Nice stats.
Game 5 in '05 against Phoenix and Detroit were on the road.
Last year against the Suns game 5 was on the road as well. I think they can handle it.
I do agree that a game 7 on the road is scary, though.
HCA is great, but not having it to start a series means that if you split the first two on the road, you get 3 out of 4 (games 3,4,and 6)in your crib. If you don't get the opening split, though, it puts enormous pressure on you to hold your three games at home.
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