If the NBA’s broader history is any indicator of its present, then the Philadelphia 76ers will, eventually, beat the Toronto Raptors in the first round of these playoffs.
Philadelphia had a 3-0 series lead, after all, and no NBA team has ever come back from that deficit. But, as soon as the Raptors won their first game, another history to consider came into the picture, too: 76ers head coach Doc Rivers is the only man to oversee more than one NBA team that has squandered a 3-1 series lead.
As his 76ers and the Raptors have trended in opposite — potentially historic — directions the last two games, it’s a record he can no longer avoid either on the eve of a game that could force a winner-take-all Game 7.
“My Orlando team [in 2003]was the eighth seed. No one gives me credit for getting up against the [Detroit] Pistons, who won the title [in 2004]. That was an eighth seed,” Rivers said during a lengthy defence of his track record while holding what is, almost always, an insurmountable lead. “I want you to go back and look at that roster. I dare you to go back and look at that roster. And you would say, ‘What a hell of a coaching job.’ Really.”
“I mean, the Clipper team [in 2015]that we lost 3-1, Chris Paul didn’t play in the first two games, and was playing on one leg, and we didn’t have home court. And then the last one [when the Clippers lost to the Denver Nuggets in 2020], to me, is the one we blew. That’s the one I took. We blew that. And that was in the bubble. And anything can happen in the bubble. There’s no home court. Game 7 would have been in L.A.”
Rivers’ assessment is not, entirely, revisionist history.
In 2003, his Orlando Magic were the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference facing a Detroit Pistons club that did make the Conference Finals and, eventually, go on to win the NBA title the following season. But, in their losses, the Magic fell short by an average of 18.25 points, underscoring how they never really came close to closing out the Pistons.
Similarly, in 2015, the Clippers were derailed by an injury to Chris Paul. But the team’s loss in Game 6 of that series against the Houston Rockets, when they still held a 3-2 series lead and were in control with a 19-point edge in the middle of the third quarter, was widely seen as a debacle. The Clippers never recovered, and the misstep largely marked the end of their Lob City era in Los Angeles.
“It just happens,” Rivers said. “So I would say with me, some of them is…I gotta do better always. I always take my own responsibility. And then some of it is, circumstances happen. This one, let’s win it, and we don’t have to talk about it.”
Whatever the justifications, revisionist or otherwise, of how Rivers’ teams faltered while holding 3-1 leads, the tone of his defence — that he felt the need to defend his history at all — stands in stark contrast to the mindset of Raptors head coach Nick Nurse heading into Game 6.
“We talked about it a little bit, being down 3-0,” Nurse said on Wednesday. “If somebody could do it, it’d be us. They were in that meeting when I said that. However, I don’t think they’re really seeing that part of it at all right now. I think they’re just trying to figure out where they can play the best at both ends, how they’re fitting in, and all that stuff.
“We’ve got some guys I think that the confidence is growing. OG [Anunoby] for one, he’s really playing composed. Gary [Trent Jr.], Precious [Achiuwa], Thad [Young], Chris [Boucher] is chipping in with what he does.
“So there’s some confidence growing with some of those guys and that’s what we needed to have happen to get in this series.”
