When it comes to making sense of the dominance of home teams in the NBA playoffs, there are a few standby explanations. There are the effects of the energy of a partisan crowd and the well-documented tendencies of referees to respond to their environment by giving a favourable whistle to the locals. And there’s the old basketball saying: Benches don’t travel.
Heading into Thursday’s Game 5 of the deadlocked Eastern Conference final, the latter didn’t exactly offer a satisfying summation of Toronto’s struggles away from Scotiabank Arena during this post-season. The Raptors came into the game with a 3-4 record on the road in these playoffs.