Three-point wave subverts tradition! A away counterattack has become the new normal for the playoffs

The NBA teams have been fighting for the best place in the playoffs throughout the season. After 82 regular season games, one of the core goals for the best record is to gain a home court advantage. If you can lock in a higher ranking, you can have one more home game in the series and even the entire playoffs, especially in the tiebreak battle that determines life and death, holding the blessing of home fans. However, when the four division top seeds, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Boston Celtics, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Minnesota Timberwolves, lost their first game at home in just three days, a question surfaced: Is the halo of home advantage dissipating?

Since this year's playoffs, the home team's record has been only 26 wins and 24 losses, setting the lowest home winning rate since 1981 (except for the 2020 Bubble Park). Although the home winning rate fell below 50% in 1981, it rebounded to 60% the following year and returned to historical normal - in the first 78 NBA playoffs, 56 home winning rate exceeded 60%. However, since 2018, this number has not exceeded the 60% threshold. The more cruel reality is reflected in the tie-break battle: in the first 73 seasons of the NBA, the home team's tie-break winning rate was as high as 79.1%, but it has dropped sharply to 5 wins and 10 losses (33.3%) since 2021. This result was no surprise when the Warriors beat the Rockets away last Sunday.

The change in attitude of Warriors coach Steve Cole confirms the drastic changes in the times. When he reached the third championship in four years in 2018, he ranked first goal to win the home advantage; but last month he said bluntly: "I'm not sure if it's still that important. Three-pointers have become a huge variable - in the past games, it's more of a two-point hand-to-hand battle, and it's hard for opponents to suddenly reversal the situation by feeling." As Cole said, since the 2016-17 three-point wave swept the league, home winning rate has continued to decline and has not rebounded. In the playoffs this season, when the visiting team made at least one more three-point shot, its record was 12 wins and 9 losses (win rate of 57.1%), the same as last year. Deeper data reveals the trend: from 2011 to 14, the away team's winning rate when they scored one more three-pointer was 46.2%; it rose to 55% from 2016 to 19; it soared to 60.9% since 2022. The explosive growth of the

three-pointers accounted for 39.2% of the league's total shots this season) completely reshapes the game logic. When the three-pointers no longer rely on the "temperature memory" of the home basket, and when the away team can also use heavy rain three-pointers to destroy the home team's momentum, the traditional home shelter gradually collapsed. For the championship team that is currently in a passive position, this may be the code for the Jedi counterattack - since the home advantage is no longer unbreakable, they can also use the three-point rain to tear off their opponent's "home".

(Text/Kong Yang)