Utah Jazz - Inflated Home Court Advantage?

[legendarywalton]

Found this tidbit on Truehoop, and I hadn't thought of it before...

Brian Windhorst of the Plain Dealer talks about what would appear to be an enduring schedule advantage for the Utah Jazz. Anybody have a way to assess of the Jazz get more than their fair share of teams on the second night of a back-to-back? Here's how Windhorst describes it: "Year after year, Eastern Conference teams and even those Mississippi River West teams that make routine three-game trips to the far West, finish off trips in Utah as they head home. Now, the NBA will never schedule regular season games on Sunday in Utah because of the role of the church here and how the Mormons devote Sundays to family. TNT has exclusive rights on Thursdays and the NBA always tries to end long trips on Saturdays or Sundays. So, often teams come in here on back-to-backs, in the altitude usually off a game on the coast where they lose an hour on the trip. It has happened for four teams just this month in Utah."

With enough rest and altitude on our side, it seems like beating the Jazz in a playoff series might not be too difficult, especially in light of last night's drubbing.

[corona]

i think they get a very good whistle in utah too. that's what scares me most about them in a series. harprings allowed to do anything physically to melo he wants...then melo sticks his forearm out to create a little space, harpring falls down and melo gets his 4th offensive foul in 20 minutes. boozer will shove anyone he has to out of the way to get rebounds and the refs never call it. their whole offense is one giant moving screen and its never called either. remember that lane violation on birdman on the crucial play in the second game of the season?....i think it's the only lane violation the refs have called this season, and it happened to favor utah in utah.
it's not just the b2bs and scheduling stuff.

if we got them in round 1, we'd certainly need the homecourt advantage, and we'd need to protect it.

[Lava Rock Kid]

This post makes no sense.
I am sure the NBA wants Utah above all others to suceed. Since most teams end on a sat or sunday, and If you dont play on sundays, wouldnt that make you end up on the first game of a back to back on saturday instead of the 2nd half. Most east conference teams hit utah, portland, denver in a road trip to cut down on travel. Their is no particlar order.
Have you ever been to the Delta Center. The seating is very very steep. Even a long ways up you feel like you are right their close to the game. It is a loud arena. The jazz have a young team that is mentally weak. It seams like if they are booed they get all bent out of shape and start missing shots.
To be honest Utah and Denver has a huge advantage with the altitude.

Mabey Utah has such a good home record due to not playing on sundays? HMMM

[Lava Rock Kid]

Every team has the advantage of the refs at home. The refs always tends to favor home teams with the whistles. Have you ever shot more free throws in LA?

[corona]

Since most teams end on a sat or sunday, and If you dont play on sundays, wouldnt that make you end up on the first game of a back to back on saturday instead of the 2nd half.

i don't think you understood the first post.

thursday's always a TNT game. which usually means 2 games, and sometimes you'll get 3 or 4.
if only a few teams are playing thursday, it means you get a lot of friday night games to make up for not playing on thursday...plus the nba will get a decent crowd draw on friday.
and in order for the schedulers to get teams to play in utah on a roadtrip in this scenario they have to have them play friday @ someplace (ie. sacramento) and then saturday @ utah....because they can't schedule them to play @ utah on a sunday (giving that team a 1 day break). its either that, or schedule them @ utah on friday, then @ someplace else on saturday/sunday...but that could extend travel time for a team (aka. play wednesday @ clippers, play friday @ utah, play sunday @ lakers...doesn't make sense)

whereas with the nuggets (or any other team), they'll play on sunday. so the schedulers can give the road team saturday off for travel and then have them play sunday @ denver (or wherever).

Every team has the advantage of the refs at home. The refs always tends to favor home teams with the whistles.

i think utah has a better advantage because of the crowd...like you mentioned, and because sloan's coaching style turns games into physical matches rather than basketball games. that forces the refs to be a large factor in the game because there's potentially multiple foul violations on every play...and because they already favor utah being at home, it accentuates any homecourt bias.

.

edit: sorry. that was a wreck of a post. for some reason i couldn't explain either thing any better.

[pickaxe]

I actually think only the actual Mormons/ those who normally take Sundays off should get the night off. In other words, if Kirilenko is Mormon he gets the night off even if he is healthy. If Harpring is Mormon, he gets the night off, and a sub gets to play in his stead.

And if it's all about charity on Sunday, why don't the Jazz still play and let the entire bench take the floor for 48 minutes.

Nothing against any religion, but some people play basketball or watch basketball AND get prayer time in on the same day.

And if they want rest to, take it. I'm just saying unless it is a league-wide day off, there's no reason a participating team should get any schedule advantage.

If the Jazz get Sunday off, then every other team gets Monday off, etc. - or maybe the Nuggets get every Wednesday off.

[J Smitty]

The NBA caters to the Jazz in that respect, because all they care about is money. The one time the Jazz actually did play a home game on a Sunday in the last 7 years(yes, they've only had one)...was a playoff game against the Lakers, and only 13,000 people or so showed up. They'd rather lower the quality of the sport to make a little extra dough, by making sure the Jazz arena is full.

I think it's **** bull, but what do you expect with Stern. **** the Jazz too, btw.

[legendarywalton]

I agree the excerpt is a little confusing, but the big take away is that they don't play on Sundays and other teams end up playing them on back to backs. I never even knew about the Sunday thing... that's just absolutely appalling to me.

[el loco]

Since most teams end on a sat or sunday, and If you dont play on sundays, wouldnt that make you end up on the first game of a back to back on saturday instead of the 2nd half.

i don't think you understood the first post.

thursday's always a TNT game. which usually means 2 games, and sometimes you'll get 3 or 4.
if only a few teams are playing thursday, it means you get a lot of friday night games to make up for not playing on thursday...plus the nba will get a decent crowd draw on friday.
and in order for the schedulers to get teams to play in utah on a roadtrip in this scenario they have to have them play friday @ someplace (ie. sacramento) and then saturday @ utah....because they can't schedule them to play @ utah on a sunday (giving that team a 1 day break). its either that, or schedule them @ utah on friday, then @ someplace else on saturday/sunday...but that could extend travel time for a team (aka. play wednesday @ clippers, play friday @ utah, play sunday @ lakers...doesn't make sense)

whereas with the nuggets (or any other team), they'll play on sunday. so the schedulers can give the road team saturday off for travel and then have them play sunday @ denver (or wherever).

Every team has the advantage of the refs at home. The refs always tends to favor home teams with the whistles.

i think utah has a better advantage because of the crowd...like you mentioned, and because sloan's coaching style turns games into physical matches rather than basketball games. that forces the refs to be a large factor in the game because there's potentially multiple foul violations on every play...and because they already favor utah being at home, it accentuates any homecourt bias.

.

edit: sorry. that was a wreck of a post. for some reason i couldn't explain either thing any better.

I just want to add to this a bit. Earlier this season the Bulls were on a west coast swing, they flew out west (played a couple of games on the coast Lakers/Blazers/Warriors) flew to Denver to play us and then turned around and flew back west to play Utah on the 2nd night of a back to back to play Utah before flying east again. The Bulls won the game against the Jazz, so I don't know if that would still give the Jazz the advantage or not considering that they lost the game that supports the original article quoted in this thread.

The NBA also tries to combat the Sunday thing, which I think they do a good job of, by scheduling the Jazz in more back to back's throughout the season. I think they end up playing in 3 more of them then we do by the time the season is done. I'd say this stuff evens out.

The home crowd stuff I agree with. Utah has a better home crowd (noise) and their crowd works the officials unlike our quiet as hell opera house.

[denvers_finest]

I had never heard of the no sunday games in utah before either. Its rather suprising. It's not like Utah is the only state in the country that has a religous population. If the fans don't want to show up on Sunday, thats their perogitive, but i don't think its fair to give a scheduling advantage to a particular team that the rest of the league doesn't get.

Guess that's why Utah doesn't have an NFL team.

[legendarywalton]

The NBA also tries to combat the Sunday thing, which I think they do a good job of, by scheduling the Jazz in more back to back's throughout the season. I think they end up playing in 3 more of them then we do by the time the season is done. I'd say this stuff evens out.

I guess I should have checked to see if the NBA did anything to equalize the effect... just blame it on my hatred of the Jazz and everything Salt Lake City related. South Park really helped reinforce my stereotypes too... dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb....

[TheBigEnglish]

dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb....

LMAO!!! My favorite episode!

[Lava Rock Kid]

The nba makes concessions for teams. The owner of the Jazz is a religious man, yes a mormon. He feels that people should be home with their families on Sunday. The nba complies. I think this is good for the nba to do. The jazz prefer to go on a long road trip back east before christmas, they always do. The spurs vacate home during the rodeo so home game attendance is not affected. The bulls vacate during i think a circus? One downside is not being on the Sunday TV. Jazz players loose exposure to the national audience. Utah doesnt have a pro football team due to the small market. Most UTah fans are bronco fans anyhow.

[denvers_finest]

The nba makes concessions for teams. The owner of the Jazz is a religious man, yes a mormon. He feels that people should be home with their families on Sunday. The nba complies. I think this is good for the nba to do. The jazz prefer to go on a long road trip back east before christmas, they always do. The spurs vacate home during the rodeo so home game attendance is not affected. The bulls vacate during i think a circus? One downside is not being on the Sunday TV. Jazz players loose exposure to the national audience. Utah doesnt have a pro football team due to the small market. Most UTah fans are bronco fans anyhow.

Actually, the Spurs vacate for the rodeo because the rodeo is held in the AT&T center where the Spurs play (i believe it was part of the agreement with the city when they got a new stadium). The same is true for the Bulls and the circus road trip. Just like the NBA has to schedule their games around NHL/NLL/AFL, etc games (and vise versa). Planning road trips because the arena is being used for another function is a whole different story than never having home games on Sunday because the owner, and fans, don't want to.