NBA Playoffs First Round Recap: Two 3-1 Comebacks, Three Game 7s, and the Most Dramatic Round in Years
The first round of these playoffs is finally over, and it delivered one of the most dramatic openings the league has seen: three Game 7s, and for the first time in NBA history, two different teams overcoming 3-1 deficits in the same round.
Philadelphia's comeback against Boston was the headline. The seventh-seeded Sixers looked finished after getting run off the floor 123-91 in Game 1 and then blown out again, 128-96, to fall behind 3-1 in Game 4. Embiid was hobbling. The supporting cast looked inconsistent, and nobody outside the Sixers' own locker room gave them a real chance. Then Philadelphia won three straight: 113-97 in Game 5, 106-93 in Game 6, and a 109-100 road win in Game 7 that ended Boston's season. It's only the 13th time in league history a team has come back from 3-1 down to win a series, and the first time a 7-seed has eliminated a 2-seed since 2023. On the other side of that box score, Boston became just the 14th team in NBA history to blow a 3-1 series lead. This is a franchise that had been 48-1 all-time when leading a series 3-1, and the fact that it happened at home, against a 7-seed, is going to raise real questions about this core's ability to close out a series when a title is on the line. Embiid, questionable for most of the series with his usual injury concerns, delivered exactly when Philadelphia needed him most.
Detroit's path to the second round was just as improbable. The Pistons fell behind 3-1 after dropping Games 3 and 4 in Orlando, then trailed by 24 points in a Game 6 they had to win just to survive. They stormed back behind 32 points from Cade Cunningham and 30 from Tobias Harris, who hit 5 of 7 from three, while Orlando's offense produced only 19 points across the entire second half, the fewest ever scored in a playoff half. It's the largest comeback by a team facing elimination on the road in NBA playoff history. Cunningham closed it out in Game 7 with 32 points, 12 assists, and a plus-29 that cemented him as one of the most clutch young players in the sport. He led every scorer left standing through the first round. Just two years removed from setting the record for the longest losing streak in a single NBA season, Detroit looks like a legitimate contender now. Orlando has nothing to be ashamed of. Paolo Banchero was brilliant even in defeat, scoring 38 points on 14-of-25 shooting in the Game 7 loss, and the Magic's future looks bright even if that blown 24-point lead in Game 6 is going to sting for a while.
New York's road to the second round was more straightforward but still had its moment. After Atlanta clawed the series even at 2-2 with gutsy wins on the road and at home, the Knicks answered with a 126-97 blowout in Game 5 and a 140-89 demolition in Game 6 that ended it. Karl-Anthony Towns posted a triple-double in that closeout game despite making just one field goal, tying an NBA record, and New York tied the league's playoff record with 25 three-pointers in Game 4 of the series. The Knicks are heading back to the Eastern Conference Finals for the second straight year and look like the most complete roster left in the East.
Out West, Oklahoma City handled its business efficiently, dispatching Phoenix in four games behind a dominant Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the kind of depth that's made the Thunder look like the class of the conference all year. The Lakers eliminated Houston in five, with the signature moment coming in Game 3, when LeBron James lobbed an alley-oop to his son Bronny for a reverse layup, the first father-son assist in NBA playoff history, and a moment that's going to get replayed for decades regardless of how much longer LeBron plays. Houston did steal Game 5 at home, snapping LeBron's all-time 40-1 record when leading a playoff series 3-1, and a limited Kevin Durant playing through knee issues makes you wonder what a healthy Rockets team might have done, but the Lakers' experience ultimately proved decisive. The wildest series in the West was Spurs-Blazers, where Victor Wembanyama set a single-game playoff record with 12 blocks in Game 1 and San Antonio needed a Game 4 comeback from 15 down, the first team in playoff history to win a game by 15-plus after trailing by 15-plus, before finally closing out Portland in six. And Minnesota pulled the West's biggest upset, eliminating the third-seeded Nuggets in six games as Anthony Edwards asserted himself as a genuine superstar and gave the Timberwolves the alpha scorer they'd been missing in past playoff runs, while Denver's inability to close out games at home proved fatal despite Nikola Jokic playing like himself all series.
None of it happened in a vacuum, either. The Celtics-76ers Game 7 averaged 11 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, the most-watched first-round Game 7 in league history, helped along by the NBA's move away from first-round regional blackouts and onto more over-the-air television as part of its new media deals.
That sets up a second round loaded with marquee matchups. Detroit and Cleveland put Cunningham's ascendant Pistons, riding a five-game winning streak since the Orlando comeback, against Donovan Mitchell, James Harden, and a Cavaliers team that's been dominant at home all postseason. New York and Philadelphia is a rematch of sorts. The Knicks were clearly better across the regular-season series, but the 76ers just proved they can come back from anything. Oklahoma City and the Lakers pits the defending champions against LeBron's final act, with OKC the overwhelming favorite even though nobody's ready to count LeBron out of anything in May. And Spurs-Timberwolves is the round's best style clash: Wembanyama's singular two-way talent against Edwards' pure scoring instinct, quite possibly a preview of where the entire Western Conference is headed for the next decade. The first round set the table. This is where it gets serious.
