The Lakers are with one foot out of the NBA playoffs after losing the first three games of the Western Conference Finals against the Denver Nuggets and there is a fact that takes away all hope for the Los Angeles franchise to get its 18th championship.
In NBA history, 149 playoff series have had a 3-0 lead and no team on the losing end has made it to the next round.
after the match, LeBron James declared that he was confident that he could make history and reverse the deficit of three losses. Who but him to achieve it like in 2016, when he came out ahead 3-1 in the Finals against the Golden State Warriors and gave the Cleveland Cavaliers their first championship.
“It should be and I hope so. I can’t speak for my peers, but I do believe. It’s time to go home and recharge your energy and prepare for Monday’s game. My mindset is like Monday is the first of the series,” LeBron James said.
Game 4 of the series between the Lakers and Nuggets will be on May 22 in the crypto.com Sand. The tip-off is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. Eastern time in the United States.
The teams that stayed closest
However, there are three teams that managed to even the series at three wins apiece, but lost Game 7: the New York Knicks were defeated by the Rochester Royals in the 1951 NBA Finals; the Denver Nuggets failed to get past the Utah Jazz in the 1994 Western Conference Final; and the Portland Trail Blazers lost to the Dallas Mavericks in the first round of 2003.
other 14 franchises have managed to win at least two of the following games before being eliminated. The most extraordinary cases were in the 1949 Finals, with the Lakers beating the Capitols, and in the 1996 Finals, when Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls won their fourth championship, at the cost of the Seattle SuperSonics.
Teams that have come back from 0-3 in other American sports
What in the NBA has been impossible, MLB and NHL franchises have done iteven in championship instances.
The 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs lost the first three games of the NHL Finals and clinched the Stanley Cup by beating the Detroit Red Wings in Game 7. Three years later, the Americans came close to making it, but the Canadians avoided losing in the last game of the championship series.
The other three comebacks in the NHL they were the New York Islanders over the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1957 quarterfinals; of the Philadelphia Flyers over the Boston Bruins in the 2010 Eastern Conference semifinals; and the Los Angeles Kings against the San Jose Sharks in the first round of 2014.
In Major League Baseball, the biggest rivalry is between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, and the only comeback from 0-3 happened between them. Those from Massachusetts arrived at Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS with three losses on their shoulders, but they put the road back together, leaving the ‘Bronx Bombers’ out after winning four in a row and they clinched the Commissioner’s Trophy in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.