The Hardwood Hex Exorcist Competition

The 10 Most Cursed NBA Arenas

A 20-season study of Halloween-week box scores, ranked by physical arena

NBA fans have long pinned certain arenas with a reputation for late-game collapses, especially around Halloween. Action Network pulled every game played in the week around Halloween (October 25 through November 4) across 18 NBA seasons, from 2005-06 through 2024-25, to see which buildings actually back that reputation up in the box score. The 2011-12 and 2020-21 seasons started in December and are excluded.

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This ranking tracks the physical building rather than the franchise. A team that moved into a new arena during the study window gets that move reflected under one combined entry for the building (for example, Air Canada Centre and Scotiabank Arena are the same Toronto building under two names), and a building shared by two teams counts as a single arena. One neutral-site game was excluded because it wasn't played in a home arena. That leaves 37 physical buildings in the dataset, of which 31 have at least 5 qualifying home games and are eligible to be ranked.

Each arena is scored on five measures of in-game misfortune, each converted into points out of 20 and summed into a curse score out of 100: how often the home team lost outright, how often it blew a double-digit fourth-quarter lead, how far its free-throw shooting fell off in clutch situations, how much colder its field-goal shooting ran compared with the rest of its season, and how often it lost to an opponent's buzzer-beater. A team that performed better than its own season average in a given metric scores zero points for that metric rather than a negative number, so the score reflects how cursed an arena is on its own terms, not relative to the rest of the league. Full scoring detail is in the methodology below.

The Top 10 Curesed Arenas, Ranked

Each of the five point columns (Home Losses, Blown Leads, Clutch FT, Cold Rim, Buzzer) is scored out of 20 and the five add up to the curse score. A metric scores 0 when the arena actually outperformed its own season average rather than underperforming it.

Where the curse actually shows up

Home losses

Rocket Arena in Cleveland has the highest home loss rate in the top 10: the Cavaliers lost 8 of 14 Halloween-week home games there, 57.1%, worth 11.4 of the available 20 points. American Airlines Center in Dallas is next at 50% (7 of 14).

Blown fourth-quarter leads

American Airlines Center has the highest blown-lead rate in the top 10, with Dallas squandering a 10-plus point fourth-quarter lead in 2 of 14 Halloween-week home games (14.3%). One came on October 29, 2022, when Oklahoma City erased a 16-point Mavericks lead to win 117-111; the other came on November 1, 2019, when the Lakers forced overtime and beat Dallas 119-110 after Dallas led by 10. Denver's Ball Arena saw a 10-point lead disappear on October 29, 2016, when Portland beat the Nuggets 115-113.

Clutch free-throw chokes

Ball Arena and American Airlines Center both score the full 20 points available for clutch free-throw collapse. Denver shot just 33.3% from the line in clutch time during the window (2 of 6), a 42.7 percentage-point fall from its 76.0% season rate. Dallas shot 50.0% in the clutch (5 of 10), a 27.5-point drop. Toyota Center in Houston is close behind at 19.9 of 20 points, with clutch free-throw shooting down 24.9 points from Houston's season average.

Cold rim: field-goal shooting

Toyota Center has the steepest field-goal shooting drop in the top 10: Houston shot 41.1% from the floor during its Halloween-week sample, 4.5 points below its rest-of-season average. United Center in Chicago follows at a 4.1-point drop.

Opponent buzzer-beaters

Scotiabank Arena has the highest buzzer-beater rate in the top 10. Toronto lost twice to a buzzer-beating shot across its 16 Halloween-week home games (12.5%): Indiana overturned a 10-point Raptors lead to win 90-88 on October 31, 2012, and Boston beat Toronto 98-95 in overtime on November 4, 2007. The Palace of Auburn Hills and Fiserv Forum are close behind, each with one buzzer-beater loss in a smaller sample.

Arena by arena

1. Ball Arena — Curse Score 52.7

Denver Nuggets · 11 home games across 10 seasons, 5 losses (45.5%)
Denver's curse score leans almost entirely on one collapse: a 42.7-point clutch free-throw drop, worth the full 20 of 20 points. The Nuggets also blew a 10-point fourth-quarter lead in a 115-113 loss to Portland on October 29, 2016, and lost at the buzzer to the Lakers, 99-97, on November 2, 2005.

2. American Airlines Center — Curse Score 48.5

Dallas Mavericks · 14 home games across 12 seasons, 7 losses (50.0%)
Dallas also maxes out the clutch free-throw category, shooting 27.5 points worse from the line in the clutch than its season rate, and blew more fourth-quarter leads than any other arena in the top 10. Its field-goal shooting, notably, actually improved slightly during the window, so it scores zero points there.

3. Toyota Center — Curse Score 38.0

Houston Rockets · 11 home games across 11 seasons, 5 losses (45.5%)
Houston's curse is a shooting one: a 4.5-point field-goal drop, the steepest cold-rim score in the top 10, paired with a 24.9-point clutch free-throw decline. The Rockets didn't blow any 10-point leads or lose on a buzzer-beater during the sample, so those two categories score zero.

4. The Palace of Auburn Hills — Curse Score 31.4

Detroit Pistons · 10 home games across 9 seasons, 4 losses (40.0%)
Detroit's score is spread across categories rather than concentrated in one. The Pistons lost on a last-second shot to Oklahoma City, 105-104, on October 29, 2010, and blew an 11-point fourth-quarter lead in a 105-96 loss to Houston on October 31, 2012.

5. Scotiabank Arena — Curse Score 29.0

Toronto Raptors · 16 home games across 11 seasons, 7 losses (43.8%)
Toronto's 16-game sample is the largest in the top 10, and its buzzer-beater rate is the highest: two losses on last-second shots, including Indiana's game-winner on October 31, 2012, which also overturned a 10-point Raptors lead.

6. Fiserv Forum — Curse Score 26.6

Milwaukee Bucks · 9 home games across 6 seasons, 4 losses (44.4%)
Milwaukee blew two fourth-quarter leads in a short sample: a 10-point lead lost to Washington on October 30, 2015, and an 11-point lead lost to Miami in overtime on October 26, 2019. Cleveland beat the Bucks at the buzzer, 114-113, on November 2, 2024.

7. Kia Center — Curse Score 25.5

Orlando Magic · 11 home games across 8 seasons, 5 losses (45.5%)
Orlando's single blown lead is the largest in the top 10 by margin: an 18-point fourth-quarter lead lost to Oklahoma City in double overtime, 139-136, on October 30, 2015. Philadelphia beat the Magic at the buzzer, 105-103, on November 3, 2006.

8. United Center — Curse Score 23.5

Chicago Bulls · 17 home games across 14 seasons, 8 losses (47.1%)
Chicago's home field-goal percentage ran 4.1 points cold against its season average, the second-steepest drop in the top 10. Its lone buzzer-beater loss in the sample landed on Halloween night itself: a 108-107 loss to Denver on October 31, 2018.

9. Moda Center — Curse Score 23.1

Portland Trail Blazers · 13 home games across 12 seasons, 6 losses (46.2%)
Portland blew a 10-point fourth-quarter lead in a 129-128 loss to Philadelphia on November 2, 2019, the same game that produced its buzzer-beater loss. The Trail Blazers also lost at the buzzer to the Clippers on October 26, 2017, and to New Orleans on October 25, 2024.

10. Rocket Arena — Curse Score 22.9

Cleveland Cavaliers · 14 home games across 11 seasons, 8 losses (57.1%)
Cleveland's home loss rate, 57.1%, is the highest of any arena in the top 10 and alone accounts for more than half its curse score. Oklahoma City erased a 10-point Cavaliers lead to win 108-105 on October 27, 2023.

Methodology

Action Network reviewed every NBA game played between October 25 and November 4 across 18 seasons, 2005-06 through 2024-25 (the 2011-12 and 2020-21 seasons, which began in December, are excluded), drawing on schedule, box score, and play-by-play data from Basketball-Reference.com. Every game was cross-checked so that quarter scores, play-by-play, and box score totals agreed; the one game that failed this check was excluded.

This ranking is built per physical arena rather than per franchise. Arenas were matched to buildings by hand: renamed arenas were merged into a single entry (for example, Pepsi Center and Ball Arena are the same Denver building), and a team's move to a new arena started a new entry (for example, Oracle Arena and Chase Center are separate Golden State entries). A building shared by two teams is counted once. One neutral-site game was excluded because it wasn't played at a team's home arena. This produces 37 buildings, of which 31 have at least 5 qualifying home games and are ranked; the other six, including Intuit Dome and Chase Center, fall below that threshold and are excluded from the ranking despite having a calculated score.

Each arena is scored on five metrics, each calculated against that same team's rest-of-season performance and converted to a 0-to-20-point scale:

• Home losses: 20 × the share of Halloween-week home games lost.
• Blown fourth-quarter leads: scored against a full-points benchmark of one blown 10-plus-point lead in every four home games.
• Clutch free-throw choke: season free-throw percentage minus free-throw percentage in clutch time (final 3 minutes, score within 5 points), scored against a full-points benchmark of a 25-percentage-point drop.
• Cold rim: season field-goal percentage minus field-goal percentage in the sampled games, scored against a full-points benchmark of a 10-percentage-point drop.
• Opponent buzzer-beaters: home losses in which the visiting team's winning or game-tying shot came in the final 5 seconds, scored against a full-points benchmark of one such loss in every five home games.

A team that performed better than its own season average on a given metric scores zero points for that metric rather than a negative value. The five point totals sum to the curse score out of 100; a higher score indicates a more cursed arena. This report uses the curse score only and does not reference the separate normalized score also included in the underlying dataset.

This report accompanies Action Network's Hardwood Hex Exorcist competition. It is independent research and is not sponsored by, endorsed by, or affiliated with the NBA, its teams, or any venue named above.