
In the world of playoff basketball, a certain mystique surrounds the words three and one.
A 3–1 margin in a best-of-seven series is not a 3–2 margin, which is quite common. It is not a 3–0 deficit, which no team has ever overcome. A 3–1 deficit lies in the space between normality and impossibility—that narrative driver of sports called improbability, which is where the magic happens.