An NBA comeback starts with stops.
If a team wants to overcome a significant deficit and win a game, it must stop the opponent from scoring and has to find offense.
The 2025 NBA playoffs are proving a truism and/or reinforcing a cliché: few leads are safe.
Down 29 in the second quarter and behind 77-51 to the Memphis Grizzlies at halftime in Game 3 of their first-round series, the Oklahoma City Thunder outscored the Grizzlies by 32 in the second half for a 114-108 victory, marking the first time a team has overcome a 26-point halftime deficit in a playoff game.
Trailing 75-55 with 5:47 left in the third quarter of Game 1 of their second-round series against the Boston Celtics and 73-53 with 3:12 left in the third quarter of Game 2, the New York Knicks erased both 20-point deficits and took Game 1 108-105 in overtime and Game 2 91-90. Both were road wins for the Knicks, stunning the defending champions.
The Denver Nuggets fell behind by 11 with 4:31 to go in the fourth quarter of Game 1 against the Thunder and won 121-119.
The day before New York’s Game 2 victory, the Indiana Pacers were behind 81-61 in the third quarter and 119-112 with 57.6 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter of Game 2 against the Cleveland Cavaliers and won 120-119 on Tyrese Haliburton’s 3-pointer.
“Hard to put all of this into words,’ Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said at the beginning of his news conference.
“Our group has a belief in one another, and we just (keep) executing, we just keep playing,” Carlisle said, trying to explain and later adding, “One thing that we continue to say is Pacers basketball is 48 minutes. Sometimes, it’s 53 and sometimes, it’s 58.”
The 2025 NBA playoffs have turned into the season of the comeback, creating wild, exciting, entertaining and unpredictable series.
“We all know in the NBA the playoffs, these games are so long, you just try to give yourself a chance,” Nuggets interim coach David Adelman said.
New York’s Game 2 victory marked the first time an NBA team had consecutive 20-point comeback victories in the playoffs, and it was also the first time the NBA had three consecutive days when a team overcame a 20-point deficit to win a playoff game.
Indiana became just the third team since 1997-98 to overcome a seven-point deficit in the final minute of a playoff game.
The Knicks’ Game 2 victory was the 26th 20-point comeback playoff victory in the NBA’s play-by-play era (since 1996-97), and the Pacers and Knicks are the only teams to complete two 20-point comebacks in the same postseason since 1998, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
“When you’re in those moments, you don’t realize you’re in those moments,” Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns told USA TODAY Sports on April 19 after New York’s Game 1 victory over the Detroit Pistons in the first round. “To be told after the game that it was a 21-0 run, I couldn’t tell you that it was. You just get so locked in on the game, so locked in the moment. You just play the game out and execute at the highest level you possibly can and deal with the results later.
“It’s one of those moments where you just get lost in the game. I’m glad that we got lost in the game for the right reasons.”
Said Thunder coach Mark Daigneault: “There was great communication on the bench, even when we were down 20. We didn’t try to break the game open in one shot. We just stayed present, stacked possessions, and trusted the process. And that shows the power of it.”
Carlisle used the words ‘lucky’ and ‘fortunate’ repeatedly. That’s part of it, but it doesn’t tell the complete story. It’s not easy mentally or physically to overcome a 20-point deficit and win. The energy and focus required are taxing.
But it is one possession at a time. If one team can take a 20-point lead, the other team can eliminate it, as long as there’s enough time. During timeouts, coaches tell players to win small segments of the game and try to be more aggressive, putting pressure on the opponent.
While it requires determined play from one team, the other team has to shoot and play poorly and make mistakes both on the court by players and on the sideline by coaches.
It is a combination of good events for one team and bad events for the other.
In the final 19 minutes of Game 2 between Indiana and Cleveland, the Pacers outscored the Cavaliers 59-38. They shot 54.8% from the field, including 6-for-12 on 3-pointers, and outscored the Cavs 11-0 in points off turnovers. The Cavs were 11-for-32 from the field and 2-for-14 on 3s.
The Celtics have been a disaster in the fourth quarter against New York. They are a combined 9-for-45 from the field and 4-for-26 on 3-pointers and have scored 33 total points in the frame through two games. Meanwhile, the Knicks shot 45.5% from the field and 45% on 3-pointers. The 3-point shot works both ways – a team can shoot itself out of the game and/or shoot itself into it.
No team has embraced the frenetic comeback ethos more than the Knicks, who have overcome fourth-quarter deficits of at least seven points in five of their six postseason victories this year.
In simplest terms, the Knicks play their best in fourth quarters, particularly in the clutch. Across their six victories in the playoffs, the Knicks have outscored opponents in fourth quarters by a margin of 170-137, for a net gain of 33 points.
But in the final five minutes, that is only intensified further; New York’s margin in that stretch — across its six postseason wins — is 87-66, or plus-21. In Game 1 of its first-round series against the Pistons, the Knicks also ripped off a 21-0 run to pull ahead.
The Knicks have relied on a similar formula for each comeback: they’ve tightened their interior defense, forcing teams to take perimeter shots contested by their lengthy wing defenders. They’ve boxed out and have crashed the glass to secure rebounds. And they’ve raced out in transition to try to get easy, high-percentage buckets — or kickouts to open shooters.
But the spurts always start on defense.
“Our biggest thing, especially when we go on those runs, it’s like: ‘All right let’s get a stop,’ ” Knicks forward Josh Hart said Wednesday after Game 2. “ ‘We get a stop, let’s get another stop. Let’s get another stop.’ We’ve got guys that can score the ball. When we’re down by that much, the only thing we’re thinking about is: ‘Let’s get this to a one-possession game.’ Our defensive intensity picked up in the fourth quarter.”
Therein lies the issue with comebacks: for a team to erase a big lead, it usually means it played poorly enough earlier in the game to fall into a hole.
“Now,” Hart added, “we have to learn from it and put together a full game.”