Steph Curry Down 0-2 For First Time In NBA Playoffs Career: A Look At The Betting Odds For A Comeback

For the first time in his NBA career, star Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors finds himself in unfamiliar territory.

Facing a 0-2 deficit for the first time in the NBA Playoffs, Curry looks to help his team advance and continue on the road to defend its 2022 NBA Championship.

What Happened: Curry holds many NBA records, including the all-time three-point field goals record, which he grabbed in 2021.

The Warriors star looks to overcome tough odds being down 0-2 to win the team’s first-round matchup as the sixth-seed team in the Western Conference against the third-seed Sacramento Kings.

This marks the first time the Warriors have trailed 0-2 in the NBA Playoffs since 2007 and the first time in Curry’s NBA career. The Game 2 loss by the Warriors to the Kings was also the team’s first consecutive playoff loss since the 2019 NBA Finals.

“You gotta embrace it,” Curry said in a post-game interview on being down 0-2. “Embrace the challenge of protecting our home court, which we’ve done great all year.”

The Warriors posted a 33-8 record in their home games during the 2022-2023 season.

“The series doesn’t start until somebody wins on the other team’s home floor.”

In the NBA Playoffs, Curry has only lost once in the first round, which came back in 2014 with a seven-game series against the Los Angeles Clippers.

Throughout his NBA Playoffs career, Curry averaged 26.7 points, 5.4 rebounds and 6.2 assists per game, playing in 136 total games. Curry has helped the Warriors win four Championships (2015, 2017, 2018, 2022).

In the 2022 NBA Finals, Curry was named the Finals MVP for the first time in his career.

Being down 0-2 is not impossible to overcome, but does come with unlikely odds that Warriors fans likely don’t want to hear. A report from Sporting News shows that only 32 teams out of 442 have come back from being down 0-2 in the NBA Playoffs. This gives the Warriors a historical 7.2% chance of winning the first round.

The Warriors are one of the 32 teams that have come back from being down 0-2, which happened in the 1987 NBA Playoffs, prior to Curry being born.

Game 3 features the Kings at the Warriors and tips off at 10 p.m. ET Thursday, April 20 and can be viewed on TNT, a unit of Warner Bros Discovery Inc WBD. Game 4 will see the Kings and Warriors playing on Sunday, April 23 at 3:30 p.m. ET in a game viewable on ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co DIS. 

Game 1 and Game 2 aired on ABC and TNT, respectively. Disney has reported strong viewership figures for the opening playoff games. Like the Warriors, ABC and TNT could be hoping for the series to go to six or seven games. 

Related Link: LeBron James A First-Round Underdog For First Time In NBA HIstory, Can The Lakers Pull Off The Upset? 

Betting Odds: The Warriors come into Game 3 as six-point favorites and odds of -240 to win their first home game in the series.

Odds from DraftKings Inc DKNG have the Warriors as the underdog at +140 to win the series. The Kings have odds of -170 to win the first round.

Betting platforms expect the first round to be long, which could be good news for the Warriors who now need at least six games to win the series. The over/under for the series is set at 5.5 games and odds of -270.

For the overall NBA Championship, the Warriors rank seventh of the 16 NBA teams with odds of +1600, coming in ahead of the Kings at +2800 ranking ninth.

Curry has odds of +1700 to win the NBA Finals, ranking eighth.

For more on the sports betting landscape and what could be next for popular betting segments and legislation, tune in to the Benzinga Sports Betting Titans virtual event on May 24.

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Photo: Rob Corder via Flickr Creative Commons