Home Sweet Home!?

It pays to play at home in the NBA playoffs. The only teams to have successfully taken away some of the "home court advantage" factor in the playoffs have been Philadelphia and Utah. Utah of course owns a 2-0 lead over the slightly higher seeded Rockets, as they won both games in Houston. Philadelphia stunned the NBA nation by going into Detroit and pulling off a game 1 win. That series is tied at a game a piece now.

On Thursday night, several teams took advantage of being back home so they could get themselves back into their playoff series. Washington had quite an impressive win over Cleveland, blowing them out 108-72 for the Wizards' biggest playoff win ever. DeShawn Stevenson and Caron Butler figured big in the game, with Stevenson leading the way and using a "you cant see me" hand gesture after several big baskets. The crowd was on Lebron all night, chanting "over-rated" which as we and they all know is untrue. Kevin Duarant, Clinton Portis, Soulja Boy & Colin Powell were amongst the celebrity spectators for the game in DC.

Toronto was also back home Thursday night, hosting the Orlando Magic. Toronto stayed ahead in this one and won 108-94 behind 21 points from point guard TJ Ford. Jose Calderon wasn't too shabby either. The Raptors are now back into the series, down just 2 games to 1. I still don't see the Raptors taking this one, but the NBA is where amazing happens.

Houston traveled to unfriendly Utah for their Game 3. The Rockets had guard Raefer Alston back from injury which was good news. As mentioned before, the Rockets were down 0-2 to Utah, and it could become yet another first round loss for Tracy McGrady. We finally got an exciting, down to the wire contest here, amongst all the recent playoff blowouts (Celtics, Pistons, Cavs, Wizards, Hornets, etc). Houston ended it by pulling off a 94-92 win in Utah, which they really had to do. Houston had their backs against the wall as T-Mac said afterwards. T-Mac had 27 points and 7 assists. The returning Raefer added 20 points as well. Carl Landry had a huge block on Deron Williams to protect the Rockets lead and win. Unfortunately, Landry also took a shot during the game and lost some of his teeth...

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