Some people don’t believe in declaring a game to be a must-win unless elimination is mathematically at stake. I’m not one of those people. After losing Game 1 to the Celtics at home, the Warriors have to win Game 2.
If they don’t, history suggests this thing is over. No team ever has lost the first two games of the Finals at home and come back to win the series. Only five times have a team gone down 0-2 and come back to win and in all five instances, it was the road team in the early hole, at least giving them the advantage of returning home for Game 3.
Milwaukee pulled this off last year, dropping the first two Finals games in Phoenix before sweeping the next four. The Warriors know all too well about the 2016 Cavaliers going down 0-2 in Oakland, then eventually winning the series in seven. But again, those teams lost the first two on the road.
