The facts: No team in NBA history has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series. There's been 93 teams in such a situation, and none have battled back and won. As such, the Magic are facing some seriously long odds heading into Game 5 Wednesday night at home. Or are they? As ESPN's John Hollinger writes in Wednesday's PER Diem, now that they've gotten the series to 3-1, they stand a better chance at stretching it to seven games. The odds are still stacked against them, yes. But going off historical statistics, a Game 5 win is actually in their favor. "Historically, the Magic are facing some long odds. The good news, however, is that they already accomplished the hardest part by winning Game 4. Teams down 3-0 have struggled mightily in that contest, but those with a home Game 5 haven't faced as many problems. Historically, home-court advantage teams trailing 3-1 are 43-17 in Game 5, a 71.7 percent success rate. Should they survive Game 5, 36.7 percent of the home-court-advantage teams facing Game 6 elimination have prevailed. Combine the two probabilities and you get about a 1-in-4 shot for the Magic to become the fourth team in league history to force a seventh game after being down 3-0. And although no team has won after trailing 3-0, the same isn't true for the Magic's current 3-1 deficit. Six of the 60 home-court-advantage teams that trailed 3-1 came back to win; when trailing 3-2, which might be Orlando's deficit after Wednesday night, the odds improve to 14.5 percent. Not anything you would bet on, perhaps, but still a grand improvement on zero.That's where Orlando can hang its hat entering Game 5. Comebacks from 3-0 have been far less common than one might believe just from modeling the situation mathematically, but apparently the first step is the hardest. At some point, as Van Gundy noted, the law of averages dictates that an NBA team will win a series after trailing 3-0. After shaking off the negative psychology of 3-0 to win a road Game 4, the Magic have at least given themselves a chance -- albeit a small one -- of making history." Source: ESPN
