We’re not big NBA fans, as is well known. But we like sports history, in general, and the Boston Celtics won Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Miami Heat in stunning fashion—to force a Game 7 and a moment in time which is unprecedented. No NBA team ever has lost the first two games at home, fallen behind 0-3 in a series, and battled back to force a Game 7 … never. So, let’s look at some of the realities here.

Boston now has a 72-percent chance of winning at home to advance to the NBA Finals against the resting/waiting Denver Nuggets. Again, historically there is no precedent in NBA history—and only two prior instances in MLB and NHL history, for that matter—where a team with home-court/field/ice advantage lost the first three games of a series and fought back to force a Game 7. However, three NBA teams in general have fallen behind 0-3 and come back to tie it up.

All three of those teams lost:

  • 1951 NBA Finals: New York trailed Rochester Royals 3-0, lost in seven.
  • 1994 Western Conference semifinals: Denver trailed Utah 3-0, lost in seven.
  • 2003 Western Conference first round: Portland trailed Dallas 3-0, lost in seven.

The Royals played at home in that Game 7 victory, while the Jazz and Mavs did, too. That means in all these cases, the home team won Game 7—even though they were avoiding disaster. The Heat has to do this on the road to escape all-time humiliation. While Miami did win Games 1 and 2 on the road, both those victories seem like a long time ago right now. We knew the Celtics were the mathematical favorites to win it all earlier, but the Heat seemed destined to change that.

Now, we’re sort of right back where we started: Boston is favored to advance to the Finals. This should be a case where the math prevails, and again, we know the Nuggets were mathematically favored to beat the Los Angeles Lakers—as they did in the Western Conference Finals. We guessed erroneously that the NBA would try to forge a Boston-L.A. Finals for old time’s sake, and we weren’t that wrong: the Nuggets only outscored the Lakers by six points per game in that sweep.

In fact, Los Angeles had the lead at the start of the fourth quarter in Game 2, for example, as well as holding a lead in the fourth quarter in Game 3 and being tied in the fourth quarter of Game 4 late. The games were there for the taking by the Lakers, but they didn’t get it done. Math won out, and we expect to win out on Monday night as well … again. So, if you’re an NBA fan, you may want to watch the game so you can share the experience with posterity someday.