The story of Turkish Airlines EuroLeague teams flipping the script to steal playoffs they had entered without home-court advantage may be shorter than its opposite, but it's still long enough to make believers out of four challengers each spring – and perhaps, especially, in this one.
Fifth- to eighth-place teams generally qualify later to the playoffs, and so must transition quickly from euphoria to the hard work of overturning their home-court disadvantage in hostile territory. It's a daunting task, but not impossible.
Since 2005, at least one team has beaten those odds in 10 of 17 seasons, or 58.8%. Since series were expanded to five games in 2009, they've had a bit more success. In eight of 13 years (61.5%), at least one underdog prevailed, and twice it was more than one. That was never the case with best-of-three series, when just two of 16 lower-seeded teams won (12.5%), and the only breakthrough club was Baskonia, in both 2005 and 2006.
In the best-of-five era starting in 2010, that rate has risen to 21.2% as underdogs won 11 of 42 series. And in all but one of them, they used the same formula – getting an early road win and then sweeping at home to qualify in four games. Higher-seed teams that win both Game 1 and Game 2 are 25-0 in five-game series and 15-0 in Game 5s.
As such, the historical imperative for underdogs is to flip home-court advantage by winning early on the road. The sweet spot for would-be upset teams is a 1-1 tie, which has happened in 26 five-game series, nine of which, or 34.6%, were ultimately won by lower-seeded teams.
