The Philadelphia 76ers try to become the first team in NBA history to come back from a 3-0 playoff deficit.
Football obviously doesn’t have series in the playoffs, so of the four major U.S. sports, only basketball, baseball and hockey factor into the equation. Only five teams in history have come back from an 0-3 deficit in the playoffs. And it’s never been done in basketball. NBA teams are 129-0 in playoff history when up 3-0. Steep hill? Absolutely. Impossible? No.
The five teams that have done it are:
- 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs (won Stanley Cup)
- 1975 New York Islanders (won Quarterfinals)
- 2004 Boston Red Sox (won ALCS; went on to win World Series)
- 2010 Philadelphia Flyers (won Semifinals; lost in Stanley Cup Finals)
- 2014 Los Angeles Kings (won Quarterfinals; went on to win Stanley Cup)
Remarkably, of the five teams that have come back, one of them is from Philadelphia and they did it against a team from Boston: the 2010 Philadelphia Flyers beat the Boston Bruins 4-3 in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
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In that series, eerily, the most memorable moment was a timeout that was called by Flyers’ coach Peter Laviolette. After coming back to tie the series at three games apiece, the Flyers fell behind 3-0 in Game 7 in Boston. For all intents and purposes that game was over. But Laviolette smartly called a timeout and told his players, “We still have a lot of time left. We need one goal this period.” They got it, and three more to win that game, and the series, 4-3.
In this series, it was a timeout NOT called that looms as the biggest moment. There are many other factors that have contributed to the deep hole the Philadelphia 76ers find themselves in, but nothing is a crucial as the uncalled timeout in Game 2 when the Sixers were up by 22 points and Boston rallied to take momentum and cut the lead to five by halftime.
If the Sixers had won that game, they would have tied the series at 1-1, heading back to Philly for two. Confidence would have soared. Instead, they blew the lead, went down 0-2, and were still suffering from the lingering aspects of the Game 2 meltdown, when they lost their composure down the stretch in Game 3.
So they now face the Mount Everest of deficits. The numbers, history and an extremely confident Celtics team is against them. I’m going to tonight’s game – in what I never thought would be a possible sweep game for Boston. BUT – although everything is against them, it still takes four games to win a seven game series, not three.
And the numbers can also reveal other things.
The Sixers won 16 in a row to close out the regular season. Boston has won three in a row to start this series. The Sixers only need four in a row to make history. Unlikely? Yes. But it’s happened before. If they win tonight, their confidence gets a little boost.
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Look at it this way: if the Chicago Cubs can win the World Series and the Philadelphia Eagles can win the Super Bowl with their backup quarterback, anything is possible.