But for those of us who have experienced the difference of a regular season NBA game (little fan noise, no uniform t-shirt giveaways, general passiveness on the part of both players, coaches and fans) and a playoff game (planned t-shirt giveaways, tons of signs, amplified noise and fan excitement, as well as spectacular efforts by players and strategy by coaches) know that winning in the playoffs takes considerably more effort. Fans are boisterous and screaming from the front row to the bleeders. The same cannot be said during the regular season. Half empty arenas probably don't provide too much fodder for home teams to get psyched up to play a game worth almost nothing.
Perhaps the NBA should change their slogan for the playoffs "NBA: Where an actual home court advantage happens"
It would be nice to think that every NBA player works their hardest from the 1st game of the season until the 82nd, in that world steroids don't exist and college athletes play for the love of the game. It just doesn't happen, and to the fans who assume they do I hope you are under the age of 12, if not don't procreate. Because that fantasy land doesn't exist.
Furthermore, the Lakers are locked in a battle with the Jazz 2-2 and not a soul is saying they have screwed the pooch, and they have been everyone under the sun's lock NBA champion from the end of the regular season.
What we should be doing is recognizing how hard true away games really are. When the Celtics traveled during the NBA regular season I think many fans were there to see how good the Celts were, not to vehemently root against them. Now that the stakes are raised and each game has value they are rabidly cheering for their team to beat them. That's the difference (well that, and some of Doc Rivers substitution patterns. Another post will tackle those), not that the Celtics are now terrible.
Bottom line, winning on the road, in the playoffs, is extremely difficult and an entirely different universe from regular season away games.
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