They say that home is where the heart is, but in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, home is also the path to the ultimate success
Postseason home-court advantage comes down to the fans
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5 Mins read
In the 14 seasons since best-of-five playoffs were introduced in 2009, fully 80.4% of the teams that started their series with home-court advantage have advanced to reach the Final Four.
That's why even this week, with the 34th and final round of the regular season at hand, almost every game matters in some way toward the final standings, because the difference between fourth and fifth place is huge for the playoffs, as is the difference between eighth and ninth in the new Play-In Showdown.
Simply put, if AS Monaco, Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens or both get tripped up in their last regular season games this week, Olympiacos Piraeus can sneak into the top four ahead of one of them and grab the all-important home-court advantage in the playoffs.
Meanwhile, in the next-to-last game of the regular season on Friday night, Virtus Segafredo Bologna vs. Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz, both teams will be playing for the right to host a Play-In Showdown game, if necessary.
Should Anadolu Efes Istanbul win against Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade on Thursday, the Virtus-Baskonia winner will finish eighth and face Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv on the first night of the Play-In Showdown, next Tuesday, April 16. But should that team fall to Maccabi, it would at least host the second play-in game on Friday. The loser between Virtus and Baskonia would likely have to face Efes on the road and, even if successful, travel to play the second play-in game on Friday. Should Efes lose, the Virtus-Baskonia loser will host the game on Tuesday between the ninth-and-10th placed teams in the final standings, and if it wins, have to play the Friday game on the road to survive.
Playoffs home-court advantage
Finishing in the top four confers two distinct advantages. Those teams will host the first two games of their best-of-five series. And then, if necessary, they also host do-or-die Game 5.
If since 2009, the top four seeds have a 45-11 record in winning their series, the aforementioned 80.4% success rate, lately they are nearly flawless. In the last four postseasons, a remarkable 15 out of 16 teams with home-court advantage at the start of the playoffs (93.8%) have punched their ticket to the Final Four.
That's not to say the champion came from those 15 winners in each of the last four seasons. In 2016-17, Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul swept 3-0 without home-court advantage – a first – and in 2021-22, sixth-place Efes won its series in four games and went on to defend the EuroLeague crown from the previous year.
Interestingly, in only six of those 16 series since 2019 has the home team taken a 2-0 series lead. Four of those six cases – one each season, to be exact – ended up as sweeps. Hosting Game 1 and Game 2 has not been excessively decisive by itself in recent years, however, since more than half of all series have required a fifth game to settle on which team is best.
Do-or-die finales
It is when best-of-five series go the distance – which is more probable now than ever before – that having finished in the top four of the regular season has been truly – in fact, unanimously – decisive.
In the decade after the introduction of five-game playoffs, from 2009 to 2018, just nine of 40 series, or 22.5%, were tied 2-2 and had winner-take-all Game 5 finales, the pinnacle of playoff basketball.
In the last four seasons' worth of playoffs, that rate has more than doubled, with nine of 16 series, or 56.3%, reaching Game 5.
The fact that do-or-die fifth games are needed to settle so many series lately speaks to the incredible parity in the EuroLeague under its round-robin format in which all teams face all others twice in the regular season. Still, that parity and all the Game 5s have only boosted the success rate of teams that started their series with home-court advantage.
That's because home teams are still undefeated in Game 5s, an incredible 18-0 record over the years, with half of those coming since 2019.
Home fans, unbeaten in Game 5
Players, coaches and experts cite several factors that contribute to home-court advantage. In any given game, that includes shooting at familiar rims, sleeping in familiar beds, and keeping familiar routines. All are credible, as is the fact that visiting teams have to travel, which prevents some of the same advantages.
But in the playoffs, both teams are traveling and the balance of familiarity is split through four games. Then they both travel from wherever Game 4 was held to play Game 5, so any fatigue from travel is pretty much shared.
That means that the 18-0 record for home teams in Game 5s likely has one major factor that is bigger in the EuroLeague than in almost any indoor sport in the world: the fans.
Just think of it: Home teams may or may not ace both of the first two home games in a series, but when it comes to Game 5 – on 18 such occasions between 2009 and 2023, at least once each in 11 different seasons, in 10 different arenas altogether – home fans have always, always walked away thrilled, making plans for the Final Four.
Yes, home may be where the heart is, but in the EuroLeague, it's where the fans are, and heading into the 15th postseason of best-of-five playoffs, those incredible fans have made all the difference.