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Some people do not believe in declaring that a game is essential, unless elimination is mathematically at stake. I’m not one of those people. After losing the first game against the Celtics at home, the Warriors must win the second game.
If they don’t, history suggests this is over. No team has ever lost the first two games of the Final at home and has won the series again. Only five times has a team gone down 2-0 and come back to win, and in all five cases has the road team been in the starting hole, at least given them the advantage of coming home for the third game.
Milwaukee got it last year, dropping the first two games of the final in Phoenix before clearing the next four. The Warriors know all too well that the 2016 Cavaliers fell 2-0 to Oakland, and eventually won the series by seven. But again, these teams lost the first two on the road.
If Golden State loses a second straight at home on Sunday, it will have to crawl back to the series in Boston.
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For the Celtics, the series has already made a statistically massive turn in their favor: the teams that win the first game of the final have won the series more than 70 percent of the time, whether that victory came home or away. .
It is not uncommon for the road team to win the first game of the final. It has only happened six times since 1990 and only twice this century. Good news for the Warriors, three of those six home teams that lost the first game at home won the series again.
- 1991 Bulls: Game 1 lost at home to the Lakers, won five sets
- 2001 Lakers: 1st game lost at home against the Sixers, series won in five
- Heat 2013: 1st game lost at home against Spurs, series won in seven
So the defeat of the first game, while it certainly turned the odds against it, did not fully condemn the Warriors. But a loss in the second game would do. Unless the Warriors plan to do something that no team in NBA history has ever done.