What happened: ESPN's Tim Bontemps notes that over the past six years, home teams are just 9-12 in NBA Game 7s, a 42.8% win rate. That is a stark reversal from the pre-2020 era, when home teams went 106-29 in winner-take-all Game 7s, a 78.5% clip.

Why it matters: Home-court advantage has long been treated as a decisive playoff reward for the higher seed, shaping how teams approach seeding races over an 82-game season. If the recent trend holds, it undercuts a core assumption about postseason structure and raises questions about what changed — from three-point variance to improved travel and rest.

What to watch: Watch whether the road-team pattern persists in any Game 7s during the ongoing 2026 playoffs and whether teams begin to weigh home-court less heavily in seeding decisions.