With his Toronto Raptors facing elimination and the daunting task of coming back from a 3-0 deficit in their first-round series against the Philadelphia 76ers, coach Nick Nurse made the case for his team to accomplish something no team in NBA history has done.
"I think it's a heckuva challenge, and somebody's got to do it," Nurse told reporters last month. "If it gets to 3-1, it's not 3-0 anymore. And 3-1's been done."
The NBA is an outlier. Four NHL teams have rallied from down 3-0 to win, most recently the Los Angeles Kings en route to the 2014 Stanley Cup, while MLB's Boston Red Sox famously completed a comeback from down 3-0 to the rival New York Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series on the way to their first World Series title since 1918.