Revisiting Home Court Advantage

One would think that the information on the NBA's official website would be accurate.  Of course this is the same league that is considering banning tights.  Because, yeah, the fans are just up in arms about players wearing leg warmers.  I think David Stern is slowing turning into that bald principal from Back to Future.  "Slackers!"

So just what in the hell am I alluding to?  Home court advantage, that's what.  Recently I explained how the Spurs had the tiebreaker locked up.  They couldn't lose the season series to DAL and they had clinched a better conference record (unless they end up with more total losses than DAL, which means the tiebreaker is moot anyway).  Why did I think that better conference record was the second tiebreaker?  Maybe because that's what the NBA website shows.  Well, thanks to spurstalk.com I have discovered this may be incorrect.  Take a look at this official looking Spurs PDF.  The document clearly states that the second tiebreaker, in this case, would be division record.  Uh oh.

The Spurs currently have an 11-2 record against Southwest Division foes while the Mavericks are 11-3.  Using upper level math skills learned whilst at Berkeley, I have determined that a Mavs win tomorrow would make them 12-3 and the Spurs 11-3 with one game separating the two teams' overall records.  It is therefore entirely possible, via multiple scenarios, that DAL could have the tiebreaker.  Assuming, of course, the PDF is correct.  I'm not sure.  Somebody get Stu Jackson on the phone.

What does this all mean?  It means tomorrow night's game is 37% more significant than I previously thought.  This will also be the first time DAL has had both Howard and Stack against the Spurs.  Howard is of underrated importance to that team, especially against the Spurs.  He'll be guarding The Sickness and he's the active type of player that could cause Manu problems on both ends of the court.  Ginobili's defensive focus seems to have slipped recently.  I have noticed multiple instances where he loses track of his man and it's resulted in back-cut lay ups or key offensive rebounds.

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It's time to start another tradition (or, in other words, justification for pointless filler) here at Pounding the Rock.  From now on every post will contain one Entirely True Yet Remarkably Meaningless Tidbit about me.  And no, I don't think anyone actually cares but that's never stopped me before.

Entirely True Yet Remarkably Meaningless Tidbit Number One.

I like that show Scrubs and every time it's on I cannot resist singing the theme song.  "No I can't do this all on my own; I know that I'm no Superman; I'm no Superman."