How to Pick a Home Basketball Winner
By Michael Williams (2/19/2007)
There is a strong home court advantage in basketball but that means that there are many inflated home favorites in basketball. Even when they are underdogs, they are never that big of an underdog.
How many times do you sit at home and wonder whether or not a team can beat an 8 point spread. That is so grueling because you know they can beat the spread if they wanted but who goes out on the floor and pretends that they are down 8-0 at the beginning of the game.
So you watch it and get upset when your team is up by 7 points and sits on the ball. Or is up by 9 and the opposing team hits a meaningless "basket".
We like home basketball teams when they are motivated. Because a good basketball can feed off of the energy of their home fans to help their play on the court. And if the team in question lost a game after being up big, they will be most likely to keep a big lead.
The following are great sources of motivation for an NBA Basketball team:
Coming off a loss.
Losing by 1 point.
Coming off a poor offensive performance. <70 or <80 points.
Coming off a poor defensive performance. Opponent > 115 points.
Coming home off a very poor road trip.
Losing as a favorite.
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