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Updated: June 2, 2005, 12:49 AM ET

Home's not so sweet for Spurs

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By Ric Bucher
ESPN The Magazine
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Editor's note: This article was written before the San Antonio Spurs' 101-95 victory in Phoenix to advance to the NBA Finals in five games.

PHOENIX – Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs have, as we like to say about the otherwise normal friend who goes off the deep end now and then, a history.

Their Game 4 loss to the Phoenix Suns forced them to revisit it. They are, quite simply, not to be trusted on their home floor.

If there's a reason to believe the Spurs can wrap up the Western Conference finals tonight with a fourth win, it's precisely because they are not in the SBC Center. While their close-out record, overall, is impressive – coach Gregg Popovich is 15-4 in such games – they have a disturbing trend of kicking away at least one game on their home floor every series. As good as they've been at home during the regular season and in the playoffs, they've swept only a single series, taking out Memphis 4-0 in the first round last year.

This quirk usually doesn't upend them, but merely delays the inevitable.

While winning eight of their last 10 playoff series, the Spurs have gone undefeated at home in only two of them. Be it early or late, it seems to be part of their DNA to drop a game at home when it is least expected. Or maybe part of the problem is their fans have come to expect it, creating a palpable nervous tension inside the SBC Center whenever a game appears to be slipping out of the silver-and-black's grasp.

Several fans evidently anticipated the traditional slip in Game 3 when the Suns closed to within six in the final minutes after trailing by as many as 20. "I thought they were headed for one of their usual Spurs collapses, but the defense hung in there," said one fan interviewed for a local postgame radio show.

The paranoia is justified. The Spurs had a similar pratfall the last time they visited the conference finals. Two years ago against the Mavs, they recovered from a series-opening home loss by winning the next three games decisively – only to lose Game 5 at home and send the series back to Dallas, where they finished business with another decisive victory.

"Some of it is human nature," said swingman Bruce Bowen. "You believe your crowd is going to carry you and provide energy, so you count on that. When you're on the road, you're thinking the opposite: 'We don't have our crowd behind us, so we're going to have to play that much harder.' "

Some of it is also the Spurs' forte: defense. Offense-oriented teams fare better in front of friendly crowds because confidence plays a far greater role in making shots than stopping them and encouragement breeds confidence. The best defenders, meanwhile, will tell you there's nothing more satisfying than the silence that comes with locking down an opponent on the road. Not to go all John Hollinger here, but against the Mavs in the 2003 conference finals, the Spurs allowed an average of 107 points in three games at home. In Dallas? They limited the Mavs to an average of 85 points.

The truth is, the Spurs were up 3-0 in the current conference finals despite not turning in a single dominating performance. They had stalled Phoenix's vaunted up-tempo offense by making transition defense a priority. As soon as the ball headed toward San Antonio's basket, two Spurs were backpedaling, as crazy as it sounds.

"For all that happened in [Game 4] with our free-throw shooting and the calls we didn't like from the referees, the bottom line is we didn't get back on defense, so we have nothing to complain about," Popovich huffed.

Nor anything that difficult to figure out going into America West Arena. Now, should they go back to the anxiety-ridden confines of the SBC Center with the series still undecided? Then they'd have reason to worry.

Ric Bucher is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine.