The San Antonio Spurs face a massive uphill in these NBA Finals. You don’t want to be down 2-0, meaning you have to win four of the next five games.
Especially if you’re the Spurs, going into the raucous amphitheatre that is Madison Square Garden for Games 3 and 4. But San Antonio is by no means out of it.
There is precedence for teams in the NBA Finals to come back from 2-0 down and win the title. It’s happened five times in NBA history.
The most recent example is the 2021 NBA Finals. The Phoenix Suns dominated the Milwaukee Bucks in Games 1 and 2, winning both games by an average of 11.5 points.
But the Bucks rallied to win four straight games and the NBA championship, with Giannis Antetokounmpo becoming Finals MVP.
Of course the classic 2016 NBA Finals saw LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers down 2-0 and 3-1 to Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors before winning that series in seven games. It’s the first team in an NBA Finals to come back from 3-1 down to win the championship.
What makes the Spurs’ chances more unlikely is that in the five previous examples, the home team held serve to win the first two games. San Antonio would be the first team to lose the first two games at home in an NBA Finals and win.
Never say never but the odds are stacked against the Spurs.
