Using data from basketballreference.com, I gathered results from the last 10 years of NBA games. This report is being finalized as the 2020-2021 playoffs begin, so this year’s data (’20-’21 season) only includes regular season games. I’ve also chosen to split the ’19-’20 season into two groups: before the COVID outbreak and the “COVID bubble” (where teams finished the season on a neutral court).
The measure that I’ll be using to quantify “Home-Court Advantage” is point differential at home minus point differential when playing away (point differential is simply the difference between points scored in a game and points allowed in a game). This allows us to account for a team’s overall success in a season and isolate their relative home-court advantage.