Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
Another year, another blown playoff lead for Doc Rivers.
Doc Rivers won an NBA championship with the Boston Celtics back in 2008. The only active head coach who has won more games than him is Gregg Popovich. But at this point, when NBA fans think of Rivers, one of the first things that usually comes to mind is his not-so-storied history of blowing series leads.
Toward the end of their blowout Game 7 loss to the Boston Celtics (a series in which they once held a 3-2 series advantage), The Athletic’s Mike Prada tweeted out this eye-opening statistic:
Assuming Philly doesn’t rally, Doc Rivers-coached teams will fall to 16-33 when they have three wins in a seven-game series.
— Mike Prada. (PRAY-duh) (@MikePradaNBA) May 14, 2023
Rivers is 16-33 in playoff games where his team already has three wins. That’s a win percentage of roughly 32.7%, which is right around the same win percentage the lowly Charlotte Hornets mustered up during the regular season (32.9%).
Now, high-stakes playoff games are much more difficult to win than banal regular season matchups, so comparing Rivers to the Hornets isn’t 100 percent fair. But when you compare his record to that of other coaches in those situations, the disparity in his performance compared to theirs becomes far more pronounced.
Here is a look at some other win-loss records of coaches with three wins in a playoff series (all the data provided by Prada):
Mike Prada
NBA Head Coaches Playoff Record with Three Wins in a Series
Now, it isn’t completely fair to compare Rivers to the likes of Gregg Popovich, Steve Kerr, and Erik Spoelstra. Those guys are some of the best to ever do it. Of course, they will have incredible win-loss records in these sorts of games.
However, what is very telling is that even George Karl – a coach with a similar reputation to Rivers in regards to his affinity for blowing series leads – has a 50% win percentage in these situations.
To put some even more context on the matter, here are some of the highlights (or rather lowlights) of that 16-33 record:
Doc Rivers teams have also now blown three 3-1 leads, four other 3-2 leads, one other 2-0 lead, and have lost Game 7 at home four times (five if you count the bubble).
He’s now 6-10 in Game 7s. https://t.co/ha0spYfvUa
— Mike Prada. (PRAY-duh) (@MikePradaNBA) May 14, 2023
Arguably the craziest of all those blown leads is the fact that he’s conceded three 3-1 leads. In the history of the NBA Playoffs, a team has come back from a 3-1 series deficit only 13 times. That means that about 23.1% of all 3-1 collapses in NBA history have happened under Rivers’ watch.
Now, this isn’t to say Rivers is a bad coach or anything or that his legacy is set in stone. He’s got an NBA title to his name, and he’s still only 61 years old, with another two years left on his contract.
All told, Rivers is still a good coach (you need to be to get a chance to blow that many series leads!), and he’ll hopefully get another shot to nip his lead-blowing demons in the bud. But in the meantime, brother, that is a tough record to have.
