Road, sweet road.
Home-court advantage? It doesn’t exist so far in the NBA conference semifinals — where visiting teams combined to go 4-0 in Game 1s, the first time that has happened during this round in the league’s playoff history.
Indiana beat top-seeded Cleveland on Sunday in the opener of that East series, New York beat defending champion Boston and Denver beat West top-seeded Oklahoma City in their respective openers Monday, and Golden State topped Minnesota in Game 1 of their matchup Tuesday.
“It’s an amazing group of guys,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said after Golden State’s win, one that came with Stephen Curry out for much of the game with a strained hamstring.
So far in these playoffs, road teams have gone 23-25. That’s on pace to be the third-best overall road playoff record in NBA postseason history, not counting the bubble season of 2020 when nobody technically was at home.
Road teams had gone 3-1 in the Round 2 openers of the NBA playoffs on three other occasions — 2023, 2015 and 2011 — in the current playoff format, which dates to 1984. (It also happened inside the bubble during the 2020 playoffs, when teams had home and road designations, but games were on neutral floors inside Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.)
But 4-0 has never happened, until now.
“I always say a playoff series doesn’t start until someone wins a road game,” Indiana guard Tyrese Haliburton said. “Well, we’ve won two.”
That’s true: Indiana doubled down on its road success by also taking Game 2 at Cleveland on Tuesday night, just before Golden State lost Stephen Curry early but won Game 1 at Minnesota.
And all that led to even more road history: Sunday, Monday and Tuesday became the first three-day stretch in NBA playoff history where visiting teams combined to go at least 6-0. That run started Sunday with Indiana’s Game 1 win at Cleveland, then Golden State’s Game 7 road win at Houston in the conclusion of the first round of the playoffs.
The wins by New York and Denver were Monday, then Indiana and Golden State won again on Tuesday.
“This team has fought all year,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “It’s been a pretty good road team.”
They’re not alone. Not this year, anyway, and this trend didn’t start in these playoffs. Home teams won 54% of games in the regular season, the fourth time the leaguewide home winning percentage has dipped that low in the last five years.
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