Warriors hoping to wrap up West at home

OAKLAND - The Warriors finally get to test out the home-court advantage tonight that they worked so hard all season to nail down.

The Warriors have been so efficient in the playoffs so far that the coveted home-court edge hasn’t really come into play yet. In the first two playoff rounds against New Orleans and Memphis, they achieved their series-clinching victories on the road.

Now, in Game 5 against the Houston Rockets, the Warriors finally have a chance to party with their fans at Oracle Arena by achieving a victory that would put them in their first NBA Finals since 1975.

Home court could come in handy, too, if star guard Stephen Curry is anything less than 100 percent following his nasty fall in Game 4 on Monday night. General manager Bob Myers said Tuesday that Curry tested fine and there were no indications of any further problems.

While Curry was twice cleared to play through the NBA’s concussion protocol, according to Myers, it remains to be seen if the Warriors’ leading scorer has any lingering muscle soreness that might impede his play in Game 5. If so, other players might have to carry a heavier load and the home court surely would provide some buffer.

But most of the heavy load still falls mainly on the Rockets. The odds against them are monumental enough, considering that in 116 previous tries no team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit in NBA playoff history. Add to that the fact that Houston must win two games at Oracle to do it - a place where the Warriors lost only twice during the regular season - and their chances would seem infinitesimal.

Want more? Combining regular season and postseason, Golden State is 45-3 at Oracle. The Rockets, on the other hand, have lost five in a row in Oakland, their last victory coming on Dec. 15, 2013.

Additionally, the last four times the Warriors had series-clinching opportunities at home, they sealed the deal - 1987 (Utah), 1991 (San Antonio), 2007 (Dallas) and 2013 (Denver). The last time Golden State lost a clinching game at home was in 1976, in a Game 7 against the Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference finals.

If all that isn’t enough, even if the Rockets manage to pull off an upset in Game 5, they still have to win Game 6 in Houston, then come back here for Game 7. The Warriors and their fan base surely would rather avoid that prospect, but it’s in their back pocket if needed.

Coach Steve Kerr isn’t all that hyped about the Warriors’ opportunity to win the Western Conference on their home floor. Anywhere will do, and the sooner the better, even with the prospect of a long layoff before the Finals start June 4.

“It would just be special to win the conference championship,” Kerr said. “It doesn’t matter to us where we accomplish that. We just want to get it done, and we’re in a great position to do so, so we’ll put together a better game (Wednesday).”

With that in mind, having the home court could prove beneficial if Curry incurs any unanticipated physical issues. In last year’s playoffs, the Warriors were able to win Games 4 and 6 against the Los Angeles Clippers at Oracle without the services of injured center Andrew Bogut to extend that series to seven games.

As for Houston center Dwight Howard, it appears as if he will play in Game 5. Howard was assessed a Flagrant 1 foul in Game 4 for throwing an elbow at Bogut, and there was conjecture that the league might review the play and change it to a Flagrant 2, which would automatically result in a one-game suspension for Howard.

Under NBA rules, if a player picks up more than four points for flagrant fouls during the postseason, that player gets suspended for a game. Howard already picked up two points for two flagrant fouls earlier in the postseason, and a Flagrant 2 would be worth two more. Moreover, if the NBA determined that the foul should have been a technical foul, Howard also would be automatically suspended for committing seven technical fouls in the playoffs.

As of late Tuesday, however, the NBA had not issued any kind of a statement regarding Howard, and according to the Houston Chronicle, the Rockets weren’t expecting one.

“I don’t know if that’s a flagrant,” Houston coach Kevin McHale told the newspaper. “He just tried to get him off him. Bogut was grabbing him and as always, the second foul gets called. He didn’t turn around and look at the guy like ‘I’m going to .?.?. ’ He swiped his arm back because he felt Bogut’s grabbing him .?.?. I guess the first thing we’ll learn is we should be the first one to grab.”