For Playoffs, Seven Isn't Necessarily the Best Number It was a perfect snapshot of the drama, pressure and excitement of the N.B.A. playoffs, but it was ultimately meaningless. Houston's season depended on a simple tip-in by Serge Ibaka. Up by 2 points and facing elimination, the Rockets" strong defense successfully thwarted the Thunder's first two options. But hounding Kevin Durant into a pass and providing strong help defense to force Reggie Jackson's runner astray had left Ibaka by himself under the hoop for an offensive rebound. A put-back would complete a Thunder rally, sending a game the Rockets had seemingly seized with a red-hot third quarter into overtime, where the Thunder could win the series and eliminate Houston. But Ibaka short-armed the attempt. As the ball fell off the side of the rim to the ground, the Toyota Center crowd erupted, and Ibaka reeled back, crumpling to the floor in agony over his missed opportunity. For all the tension, Ibaka's missed tap will likely change nothing about the postseason. The thrilling win was the Rockets" first in four tries. To advance, they'd need to knock off the best team in the Western Conference three times in four games, which would make them the first team in N.B.A. history ever to come back from a 3-0 deficit. In 2003, the league changed the opening round of the playoffs from best-of-five to best-of-seven, matching the final three rounds. Of the 80 first-round series since, the team that would have won a best-of-five series has won 76 times. All told, there has been a lot of unnecessary basketball played, with a scant few instances where a lengthier series has changed the outcome. Only four teams - the 2010 Atlanta Hawks, the 2007 Utah Jazz, the 2006 Phoenix Suns, and 2003 Orlando Magic - have come back to win a series in which their opponent was the first to three wins. There have been 13 win-or-go-home Game 7s, but nine of them have been won by the team that would have won a best-of-five series. The longer series hypothetically protects the top seeds from being eliminated in three fluky losses, but no scenario has arisen where a No. 1 or No. 2 seed has come back after losing three games. The best-of-seven is ideal for later rounds, which usually pit evenly matched elites, and the result of each series carries more weight. But first-round pairings tend to be lopsided, and there have been more sweeps - 16 if you include the Heat and Spurs this year - than Game 7s. In the same time span, the latter playoff rounds have produced only seven sweeps total compared to 13 Game 7s. No team in any round has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit, and in first-round situations where one team leads 3-1 - it happened six times in last year's first round alone - only two teams have come back to win. The longer series has also given rise to the phenomenon of the "gentleman's sweep." A term coined by CBS blogger Matt Moore, it refers to series where a clearly dominant squad goes up 3-0, but loses Game 4, "just to be polite," before finishing off the series at home in Game 5. That exact scenario has played out five times in the last three postseasons. With the Thunder and Knicks coughing up their Game 4 sweep opportunities, we're primed for more postseason chivalry. Regardless of what some might say about Carmelo Anthony's Game 4 shot selection, teams obviously aren't trying to lose when they have a 3-0 lead. But a loss with a commanding lead is a bit easier to swallow. Before Game 4, Raymond Felton offered his motivations for a win, per The Associated Press: I've been on the other end of the stick as well. I was in Charlotte, made the playoffs for the first time and we got swept by Orlando," Felton said. So it feels good to be on the winning side. So if we could come out and definitely sweep this game, it would be something special for all of us. For me, for him, especially individually, and then on top of that we'd get a lot of rest. And hopefully Indiana and Atlanta can go to Game 7. For the Celtics, elimination and the embarrassment of a sweep were at stake in Game 4. For the Knicks? Just extra rest and pride, with three more chances to win regardless. The Knicks would rally from a 20-point deficit, but lose in overtime, a should-be heartbreaker. But after the game, Felton said the team had still accomplished its task by winning one of two games in Boston to return to New York up 3-1, also per The Associated Press: "We did our job when we came here. We got us a win," Felton said. "That was our goal." There have been a few situations where a series" outcome has changed due the lengthier series, and once or twice per year, the format extends a genuinely exciting series. Casual fans would likely be fine with extending this year's high-octane Warriors-Nuggets series to best-of-23. But history makes it hard to argue the series length makes sense from a competitive perspective. In theory, the seven-game series has obvious benefits for the N.B.A. More games means more tickets sold, more TV spots, and more revenue. But in practice, the additional games have further stretched an already overly long postseason, diffusing some of the excitement of the five-game format while rarely changing the outcome. Then again, perhaps we shouldn't gripe: the extra basketball is sometimes unnecessary, and sometimes boring, but it's still extra basketball. And everybody watching breathlessly as Ibaka's tap bounced harmlessly off the rim can understand that.