Lex Nihil Novi - Celtics Won 85% of Home Games During Bird Era

Celtics Won 85% of Home Games During Bird Era





Larry Bird played his first regular season NBA game on  Friday, October 12, 1979, and played his last regular season game twelve and a half years later on April 3, 1992. During his career in Beantown, the Boston Celtics made the vaunted parquet a miserable place for opponents to play (technically, some of these "home" games were played outside of Boston in places such as Hartford, Connecticut).

The Celtics won 418 home games and lost 74 over this time span, for a winning percentage 85% or an average of 35 wins and 7 losses per year. During the 1985-86 season, the Celtics were one sleepwalking episode away from running the table, including a perfect post-season at home. Even during the 1988-89 season, when Larry Bird played only 6 games due to injury, the Celtics posted a 32-9 record at home, in contrast to a 10-31 record on the road.


bob
MY NOTE:  No great mystery here.  Win 85% of 41 home games and you are guaranteed a 35 win season.  Not great, true, but that's without winning one, single road game.


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Agreeing that this not a statistic that startles me in any way, the home court winning percentage does need to improve for the current Celtics team.

Yes, they are currently a very young team and in only the third year of a rebuild, but showing better at home will help them on the road as well as in the standings. Beating a team at home may make that same team wonder about beating the Celtics on their own floor a bit more.

Of course, they do not currently have a star player, star leader like a Larry Bird and they also do not have quite as talented cast of characters that played with Bird so this part of their game is likely to take some time as well.