NBA
Has a team ever come back from 3-0 down in the NBA Finals?
The Dallas Mavericks are still in contention to lift the Larry O’Brien Trophy, but Jason Kidd’s men must pull of a historic feat if they’re to win their second championship.
After a blowout win over the Boston Celtics in Game 4, the Dallas Mavericks are still alive in the 2024 NBA Finals - but if the Texans are to win their second championship, they will have to make league history. Not only has no NBA team ever recovered from 3-0 down to triumph in the Finals, but no postseason series of any kind has been won from such a position.
Mavs maul Celtics to cut Finals gap
Having lost three games on the bounce to the Celtics, who are chasing a record 18th NBA crown, the Mavericks had to win on Friday to avoid becoming the 10th team to be swept in a Finals series. Led by Luka Doncic, who scored 29 points at American Airlines Center, Dallas beat Boston in emphatic fashion, winning 122-84. It is the third-largest margin of victory ever recorded in an NBA Finals game.
“We had to play our A game,” Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd said after watching his players cut their series deficit to 3-1. “It was this or we go on vacation. I thought the group did a great job of not pressing, letting the game happen. We made a stand. We were desperate. We got to continue to keep playing that way. They’re trying to find a way to close the door. The hardest thing in this league is to close the door when you have a group that has nothing to lose. Tonight you saw that. They let go of the rope, you know, pretty early.”
Doncic added: “It’s first to four [wins]. And we’re going to believe until the end. So we’re just going to keep going. I have big belief in this team.”
How many teams have at least forced Game 7 from 0-3?
In the history of the NBA, this year’s Finals is the 157th best-of-seven postseason series that has seen a team slip to 3-0 down. Four sides have come very close to completing an epic comeback, by winning three in a row to level the series and force a Game 7. On each occasion, however, they then proceeded to lose the decider. The only time this has happened in the Finals was in 1951, when the New York Knicks came within one win of a sensational turnaround against the Rochester Royals. In all, 14 Finals have been at 3-0 after Game 3.
In the three near-comebacks that came at earlier stages of the NBA Playoffs, the Denver Nuggets rallied from 3-0 behind before losing Game 7 to the Utah Jazz in the 1994 Western Conference semi-finals; the Portland Trail Blazers fought back to take the Mavericks to a deciding game in the 2003 Western Conference first round; and the Celtics fell just short of a historic fightback against the Miami Heat in last year’s Eastern Conference Finals.
When is Game 5 of the 2024 NBA Finals?
In Game 5 of the 2024 NBA Finals, the Mavericks visit the Celtics on Monday 17 June, with tip-off at Boston’s TD Garden scheduled for 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT. Viewers in the US will be able to watch the action on ABC.