Does the home advantage really matter in basketball?

While the season spans from October to April each year, the post-season play-offs can get teams much further down the calendar. In the regular season alone, teams play a total of 82 games! That’s a lot of basketball, a lot of spectacle, a lot of competition and certainly a lot of opportunities for online betting. But it also means a lot of pressure, a lot of fatigue, a lot of injuries and a lot of things that can go wrong in the field. 

For every NBA fan the ultimate pleasure comes from watching a good basketball game where the teams are stretching their capabilities, showcasing their players’ talent and eventually the superior, the best one wins, defeating the weaker team and dominating the court. 

Of course, fans always have in the back of their head their favorite teams or players, for which or whom they want to celebrate at the end of the game. They always have one team that they get to support more, but in general terms a good basketball game is always a treat for the eyes of spectators and viewers.

But even when we are talking about a good, fair game, the truth is that for bettors a big issue remains the correct prediction of which team is going to win at the end of the day. Bettors don’t really care for games which have almost equally distributed probabilities for teams to dominate. They don’t really fancy confrontations where there are pretty much equal chances of both teams winning in the end. They like games that are more lopsided, even if this is not pretty straightforward or explicit from the very beginning. It is such games that can give them an edge and make them win big time – of course if they are able to capture the edge and transform it to a sophisticated, lucrative betting choice. 

Bettors wagering at Filipino online sportsbooks, platforms or even mobile apps, take many things into account when they are trying to make a betting decision: from the current form of players to the previous schedule of each team, and from injuries to whether teams are on the road or are playing at home. In fact this last one – the home or away team – has become a very common criterion for decision making in NBA betting. But is there any truth in this? Is there substantial evidence to provide support for the so-called home advantage in basketball? 

Well, basketball analysts explain that the discussion is in fact inconclusive. While there is no strong, concrete evidence supporting the home advantage, research studies have demonstrated that in some cases it does actually seem to count in the end results. On the other hand, when we have such a huge sample to work upon, it is still a matter of ‘goodwill’ that we have not abandoned the assumption of the home advantage. With such a big sample of games every season for all those teams, it remains a puzzle why we haven’t been able to draw workable conclusions on whether playing at home gives a sizeable advantage to the teams in the NBA standings.

However, even if we don’t have a solid conclusion as to the home-court effect, we can say a few things about how the implications of playing at home (or playing away) can influence the game. 

Think of the fatigue and the pressure of those who are on the road compared to those who play at home. When at home, players feel more secure, they have more chances of having greater knowledge over the court, they get to be more motivated because of the cheering domestic crowd and they can -because of all these- be more immersed in the game, committed to win in a way that doesn’t distract their attention. 

Furthermore, think of the post-game comfort as well, which can also influence the pregame and the during-the-game behaviour of the players. If they know they’re gonna go back to their house or at least a friendly place, they are more confident and they feel greater security compared to the away team’s players who end up in an impersonal hotel room, alone without the support and the comfort of their own home. 

So, even if we can’t really say whether the home advantage works in basketball, we can say for sure that it can boost the energy and the motivation of players and these, in turn, can influence their game.