The Greatest Comebacks in NBA History

The greatest comebacks in NBA history are the games and series where a result that looked decided came apart in front of a stunned building. A 20-point third-quarter lead is supposed to be safe. A 3-1 series lead is supposed to be a formality. The teams and moments below prove neither is guaranteed. Some are single-game erasures — a 31-point hole vanishing in a quarter and a half, thirteen points scored by one man in under a minute. Others are series rallies, four games where a team facing elimination refuses to lose three straight times. Every deficit, date, score, and margin here has been verified against the record books, because in a subject this precise the numbers are the whole story. These are the comebacks that redefined what "over" means.

Single-Game Erasures vs. Series Rallies

Comebacks come in two fundamentally different shapes, and it's worth separating them before ranking anything. A single-game comeback is a scoreboard event — one team overcomes a specific point deficit inside 48 minutes, and the drama is compressed into minutes or seconds. The measuring stick is the size of the deficit erased. A series comeback is a survival story spread across a week or more — a team down 3-1 (or, in theory, 3-0) in a best-of-seven has to win three consecutive elimination-adjacent games. The measuring stick there is the mathematical improbability of the hole. The two categories reward different things: single-game rallies reward a violent, concentrated run; series rallies reward nerve sustained over days. The list below covers both, because the honest answer to "greatest comeback ever" depends on which kind you mean.

The Los Angeles Clippers Erase 31, 2019

The largest comeback in NBA postseason history happened on April 15, 2019, in Game 2 of a first-round series against the 73-win-era Golden State Warriors. The Clippers trailed by 31 points and won 135-131. It was, by definition, supposed to be impossible — the previous playoff record was a 29-point rally by the 1989 Lakers over the SuperSonics, and this beat it. Los Angeles outscored Golden State 72-37 over the final stretch of the game. Lou Williams poured in 36 points off the bench, Montrezl Harrell added 25 points and 10 rebounds, and Landry Shamet buried the go-ahead three with 16.5 seconds left. The Warriors still won the series in six games — but for one night, a team that had no business being on the same floor erased a five-possessions-and-then-some deficit and made history doing it.

The Utah Jazz Erase 36, 1996

If the Clippers own the playoff record, the Utah Jazz own the all-time one. On November 27, 1996, at home against the Denver Nuggets, Utah trailed 70-34 late in the second quarter — a 36-point deficit, the largest ever overcome in an NBA game of any kind. Denver was cruising; the Jazz looked finished. Then Utah outscored the Nuggets by nearly 40 points the rest of the way and won 107-103. Karl Malone finished with 31 points and Jeff Hornacek added 29, the two veterans dragging a demoralized team back from a deficit that has never been topped in league history, regular season or playoffs. Nearly three decades later, no team has erased more than 36. It remains the outer boundary of what a basketball comeback can be — the number every other rally is measured against.

Reggie Miller's 8 Points in 8.9 Seconds, 1995

Some comebacks don't need a quarter. They need nine seconds. On May 7, 1995, in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals at Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks led the Indiana Pacers 105-99 with 18.7 seconds on the clock — a two-possession lead that any fan in the building would have called safe. Then Reggie Miller happened. He hit a three to cut it to three. He stole the inbounds pass, stepped back behind the arc, and drilled a second three to tie it. Then he drew a foul and calmly sank two free throws. Final: Pacers 107, Knicks 105. Eight points in 8.9 seconds, all by one man, in the arena where he most loved to torment the crowd. It's the single most famous individual comeback sequence in NBA history — a reminder that a lead can evaporate faster than a timeout can stop it.

Tracy McGrady's 13 Points in 35 Seconds, 2004

Nine years later, Tracy McGrady built a rally almost as absurd. On December 9, 2004, his Houston Rockets trailed the San Antonio Spurs — one of the best defensive teams of the era — by eight points in the final minute. What followed is enshrined in NBA lore as "13 points in 35 seconds." McGrady drilled four three-pointers in a row, one of them a four-point play, and the last a step-back over the outstretched hands of a Spurs defender that fell through with under two seconds left. Houston won 81-80. McGrady finished the night with 33 points, 13 of them in that closing blur. It was a regular-season game with no banner attached, and it endures anyway — proof that the most electric comebacks aren't always the ones with a trophy on the line.

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The 2008 Celtics' Game 4 Rally

The biggest comeback the NBA Finals has ever seen came in Game 4 of the 2008 series between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers stormed out to a 35-14 lead after the first quarter — still the largest first-quarter lead in Finals history — and pushed the margin as high as 24 points in the third. In Los Angeles, with the series tied 2-2, it looked like the Lakers were about to seize control. Instead Boston closed the third quarter on a 21-3 run and kept coming. Reserve guard Eddie House hit an 18-footer to give the Celtics their first lead of the night, and Boston pulled away to win 97-91. It was the largest comeback in NBA Finals history, and it swung the series: Boston took a 3-1 lead and closed out the title in six games. A blowout became a championship pivot in one quarter.

The 3-1 Series Comeback

Erasing a 3-1 series deficit is the series-length version of the miracle — win three straight, each with elimination looming, against a team that already beat you three times. It has happened only about 15 times in NBA history across every playoff round, and exactly once in the NBA Finals: the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers, who came back to beat the 73-9 Golden State Warriors behind LeBron James and Kyrie Irving. That series has its own dedicated breakdown — read The 2016 Cavaliers 3-1 Comeback for the full story of the greatest Finals rally ever. The cruel footnote: those same Warriors had themselves overcome a 3-1 deficit against Oklahoma City in the 2016 Western Conference Finals just weeks earlier, making them the only team to complete a 3-1 comeback and blow one in the same postseason.

The 2020 Denver Nuggets — Two 3-1 Comebacks

No team has ever handled a 3-1 hole the way the 2020 Denver Nuggets did inside the Orlando bubble. First, in the opening round, Denver fell behind 3-1 to Donovan Mitchell and the Utah Jazz — and won three straight to take the series. Then, as an encore, the Nuggets did it again: down 3-1 to Kawhi Leonard's Los Angeles Clippers in the Western Conference Semifinals, they rattled off three more wins to reach the conference finals for the first time since 2009. It made Denver the 13th team to overcome a 3-1 deficit — and the first in NBA history to do it twice in the same playoffs. Powered by Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic, the Nuggets turned the least likely escape in the sport into a routine, back-to-back. It is the most improbable pair of comebacks anyone has strung together.

The 1981 Boston Celtics vs. Philadelphia

Long before the modern 3-1 obsession, the 1981 Celtics authored one of the tensest series comebacks ever. Down 3-1 to the Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Conference Finals, Boston rallied to win three consecutive games — each of the last three decided in the closing seconds. The clincher, Game 7 on May 3, 1981, was a defensive slugfest capped by a Larry Bird go-ahead basket, and Boston survived 91-90. It was the first time in postseason history a team won three straight games in a single series despite trailing after the third quarter each time. The comeback launched the Bird-era dynasty: Boston went on to beat the Houston Rockets for the championship, the first of three titles that decade. For sheer white-knuckle margin — five games in that series were decided by one or two points — it has few rivals.

The 2015 Houston Rockets vs. Clippers

The 2015 Rockets produced the kind of single-game rally that powers a series comeback. Down 3-1 to the Los Angeles Clippers in the Western Conference Semifinals, Houston faced elimination in Game 6 on the road — and trailed by 19 points. Then bench forwards Corey Brewer and Josh Smith detonated: Brewer scored 15 of his 19 points in the fourth quarter, Smith scored 14 of his 19 in the fourth, and the Rockets erased the deficit to steal the game. Back home for Game 7, James Harden dropped 31 points and Dwight Howard grabbed 15 rebounds in a 113-100 win that completed the comeback. Houston became the first team to overcome a 3-1 deficit since the 2006 Suns, and reached the conference finals for the first time since 1997. It's the rare series rally built on a role-player eruption rather than a superstar's heroics.

The 3-0 Hole Nobody Has Escaped

Every list of great comebacks needs its counterweight — the deficit that has never once been beaten. In more than 160 tries, no NBA team has ever come back from a 3-0 series deficit. Only four teams have even forced a Game 7 after going down 3-0: the 1951 Knicks, the 1994 Nuggets, the 2003 Trail Blazers, and the 2023 Celtics. All four lost that Game 7. The NBA stands alone among the major North American leagues in this — both the NHL and MLB have seen 3-0 comebacks completed, but basketball never has. It's the ceiling on this entire subject: a 3-1 rally is the hardest thing that has actually happened, and a 3-0 rally is the hardest thing that hasn't. The gap between them is where the impossible still lives.

What the Great Comebacks Share

Read these back to back and a pattern emerges. The record-breakers all required a concentrated run, not a slow crawl — the Clippers outscored Golden State 72-37 down the stretch, the Jazz outscored Denver by nearly 40, the Celtics closed a quarter on 21-3. Comebacks aren't chipped away; they arrive in avalanches. The individual-heroics version belongs to shooters — Reggie Miller and Tracy McGrady each needed under a minute because a three-pointer erases a deficit three times faster than a layup. The series rallies reward depth and nerve over star power — the 2015 Rockets leaned on bench forwards, the 1981 Celtics won three straight one-possession games, the 2020 Nuggets simply refused to fold twice. And the ceiling holds: a 3-1 comeback is the outer edge of the possible, a 3-0 comeback remains the edge of the impossible. What every entry shares is a moment where one side stopped believing the game was still live — and paid for it. The best comebacks aren't about luck. They're about a team that kept playing after everyone else had already written the result.

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