After the Dallas Mavericks lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Golden State Warriors, the Suns now have home field advantage during the playoffs. The reason behind this is that the Suns’ 61-21 regular season record is the best among all the teams left in the fray.
Playing at home isn’t something the Suns have had in their sights all season. However, it will be a huge advantage for them considering that in the regular season playing at home they went 33-8 and have won all three playoffs at home.
With the stunning loss to the Mavericks, the stakes have risen in the second-round matchup between the Suns and the San Antonio Spurs.
According to Phoenix’s Steve Nash, the matchup would be like a finals even though there are still plenty of teams to play against.
In the 2005 Western Conference Finals, the Spurs defeated the Suns in 5 games and the Suns know better than to ignore them after that loss.
The two teams have played a total of 21 games against each other and the Spurs have won 17 of them, including two games of three in the regular season in 2006-07.
Spurs’ Manu Ginobili is quite optimistic about the Suns losing. He said the team knows it’s capable of beating Phoenix. While coach Gregg Popovich believes the Suns are a championship-caliber team and the Spurs shouldn’t take them lightly.