The Road to Nowhere

By Sam Rubenstein

Okay, we get it. Teams are not winning on the road in the playoffs this year. Last night’s Spurs victory in San Antonio pushed the home team in the second round record to 20-1. Chris Paul is even quoted as saying “Thank God we get to go back to New Orleans for Game 7.” You have to figure that at some point a road team will win again, but for now… 20-1!

Regarding the Spurs-Hornets series, if the Hornets win, you could say that the series was decided when New Orleans claimed home court. But what was the difference that gave them home court? Well, the two teams had the same record in the regular season. It came down to the tiebreaker, record vs. their conference. New Orleans had a better record vs. their conference by ONE win.

They split the season series 2-2, which means that this second round playoff series may have been decided by when the Hornets beat the Clippers in their penultimate game of the regular season. Or it was when the Spurs were blown out by the Lakers or Suns towards the end of the season.

I suppose you could say that the Spurs are the champs, they know how to win on the road, play in huge games, anything can happen in a game 7, the Hornets whole team is injured, blah blah blah. 20-1. The Celtics and Lakers will try to break that trend tonight. Should make for a night of entertaining viewing, especially because it’s raining out which could cancel my softball doubleheader AND Santana throwing at the Yanks in the Bronx.

Okay, road teams… do something. Aggrey/Toney/Greytone will be in attendance at a Game 7. That’s a good thing.