Don't know that this is 100% legit but it's from Zach Lowe, and he's a boss
So EVEN if we win the division we DON'T get home court advantage, if the 5th seed has a better record. I guess that puts a little damper on the "I like our odds against the Hawks with homecourt advantage" argument doesn't it?
The situation isn’t even all that dire if two non–divisional winners finish with better records than a divisional champ. In that case, one of those non-winners gets the no. 3 spot, and the other one, with the lesser record, gets the no. 5 spot — and home-court advantage over the divisional winner in the (undeserved) no. 4 seed. This is what happened in 2011-12, for instance, when the Celtics won the Atlantic Division with a 39-27 record, earning the no. 4 seed over the 40-26 Hawks, but had to go on the road for the first two games of that Atlanta-Boston series. Boston was the no. 4 seed in name only, and the post-2006 rules punished them with home-court disadvantage and the no. 4 spot that comes with a near-guarantee of meeting the top seed in the second round. No harm, no foul.
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