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Game 7 In The NBA Playoffs: Home-Court Advantage Is Overstated.

The most irritating cliché about the playoffs is that the home team wins Game 7 of the series most of the time.  Since 1991, the home team is 36-10, a .783 win percentage.  This stat is always brought up without being put into proper context; as if to say having Game 7 at home causes a team to win.  

Photo:  Newsok

However, I’ve never heard a commentator mention that the team with home-court advantage has a better record and usually is the better team anyway.  One would expect them to win a Game 7 at home, or on the road.  In this article, I will try to find out how many Game 7s were won by the home team mainly because they were at home. 

The graph below tries to get the answer to the previous question.  The basic premise of the graph is that the more road wins there are in a series, the less home-court advantage matters.  I separate Games 1-4 from Games 5-7 because the last three games of a series are usually more intense than the first four and home-court matters slightly, but still materially more in the last three games.  Since 1991, in Games 1-4 the road team wins 32% of the time while in Games 5-7 the road wins 25% of the time.  I rate, on a four point scale, the probability of the home team winning Game 7 mainly because they’re at home.  The four outcomes are: Yes, Probable, Doubtful, and No.  This is scale far from perfect, but it appears sufficient to conclude that Game 7 home-court advantage is overstated.

Here are two examples of how the table works: The 2004 series between Miami and New Orleans produced no road wins, so it would be safe to say that the home team won Game 7 because of the home court advantage. 

Photo:  Bleacher Report 

The 2003 Detroit-Orlando series produced two road wins, Detroit winning that Game 7 was more likely due to them being a better team than due to home-court advantage. 

Photo:  Jock Nuts

The graph below shows the 46 series that went to Game 7 since 1991. 

The home team won 36 of the 46 Game 7s, but how many of those 36 wins were mainly because of home-court advantage?  According to the graph, only 22 of the 36 wins were at least probably due to home-court advantage alone.  That means that 14 of the 36 home-team wins probably had nothing to do with home-court advantage.  Home-court advantage in Game 7 seems greatly overstated. 

FULL TABLES SEPARATED BY PLAYOFF ROUND




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 Only one other home team forced a Game 7,  the '97 Sonics, but they lost the series.