In the NBA Playoffs, becoming the first team to win two consecutive games is extremely important.

Since the NBA expanded to the best of seven format for the entire postseason in 2003, 89 percent of teams that were the first to win two consecutive games ultimately won the series.

In 17 separate occasions, the team that was not the first to win two straight games won the series. Two of those comebacks came in the NBA Finals, with the Miami Heat winning four in a row after losing the first two to the Dallas Mavericks in 2006 and in 2010 when the Los Angeles Lakers won Games 6 and 7 after losing Games 4 and 5 to the Boston Celtics.

The San Antonio Spurs lost in 2004 to the Lakers in the Western Conference Semifinals and again in 2012 to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals after being the first to win two in a row.

The Heat lost the 2005 Eastern Conference Finals to the Detroit Pistons after winning Games 3 and 4, while the Pistons lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals in 2007 after winning Games 1 and 2.