NBA
Has any team come back from a 3-0 series deficit in NBA Playoffs history?
LeBron James and the LA Lakers will have to make history against the Denver Nuggets if they are to progress to the second round.
Los Angeles Lakers fans feared the worst when their team was drawn to face the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs, and they were right to do so on the evidence of what we have seen so far. Although LeBron James and Co held fairly sizeable leads in Games 2 and 3 of the series, they have ended up losing three in a row and will have to make history if they are to progress to round two.
How many teams have been 3-0 behind in an NBA series? How many have forced Game 7?
Since the league began in 1946, no team has ever come back to win a series from a 3-0 deficit. What is the likelihood of the Lakers becoming the first to do so? Their recent record against the Nuggets, as well as the potential absence of Anthony Davis, the top points scorer in the first three games in the series, suggests their chance aren’t great.
As it stands, there have been 153 instances of teams taking a 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven series in the NBA, with a deciding Game 7 forced on only four occasions. However, there has always been a further twist in the tail, with the team who initially trailed 3-0 losing each time.
Heat thwart Celtics comeback in 2023 Eastern Conference Finals
The most recent example came just last year in the Eastern Conference Finals, when the Heat took control of the series against the Celtics by winning the first three games. Boston roared back into the contest in spectacular fashion but couldn’t complete the comeback, with a Jimmy Butler-inspired Miami comfortably winning the decider to triumph 4-3.
Prior to that, the Dallas Mavericks overcame a scare to defeat the Portland Trail Blazers in the Western Conference first round in 2003, while the Utah Jazz narrowly avoided throwing away their second-round series against the Nuggets in 1994.
The very first close call came for the Rochester Royals (now the Sacramento Kings) who were taken to Game 7 by the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals in 1951 having started with three successive wins.