These NBA playoffs have been one barnburner after another—buzzer-beaters, shockers, and games going down to the wire nearly every night. That’s been especially true for the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers, who are now battling in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Pacers came back from 14 down with just under four minutes to go to win Game 1. It was such an improbable comeback that even Tom Brady couldn’t help but sit there in awe.
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And that’s saying something. Because Brady is the author of perhaps the greatest comeback in North American sports history. We all remember Super Bowl LI following the 2016 season, when his New England Patriots came back from a 28-3 deficit against the Atlanta Falcons in the third quarter to win in overtime.
After seeing what Tyrese Haliburton, Aaron Nesmith, and the Pacers accomplished in Game 1, Brady reminisced about that epic comeback against the Falcons. He noted that the one thing people don’t appreciate about his comeback—and comebacks in general—is that they are “an intensely personal endeavor,” as he wrote in his recent The 199 newsletter.
“The point is, making a comeback is an intensely personal endeavor: The opponent is irrelevant. The outcome is irrelevant. A comeback has nothing to do with anything but your willingness to fight and your refusal to quit,” Brady penned.
“But you don’t have to take it from me, just listen to the GOAT of GOATs, Michael Jordan, who once said he ‘never lost a game, I just ran out of time.'”
What Brady is saying is that he and his teammates deserve the credit for making the comeback, rather than the Falcons getting the blame for allowing it to happen. As he said, “the opponent is irrelevant,” and that was all too clear for Matt Ryan (who had taken home the NFL MVP award the week before) on that fateful day in February 2017.
“Both the Falcons and the Knicks played well during the comebacks that ended in their defeat. When we got the ball with 8:31 on the clock in the 3rd quarter, Matt Ryan had a perfect passer rating. From that moment onward, he only had three incompletions…it was just that our defense got to him for three sacks and a fumble,” Brady recalled.
The word “momentum” is thrown around a lot in sports. However, many treat it like they do ghosts or aliens — more myth than reality. Brady, however, would strongly disagree.
“And that belief is, no matter what the circumstances are, we have the power to turn any defeat, big or small, into something positive. There’s a word for this: momentum. In a comeback, you’re trying to turn little wins into a snowball that begins to move under its own weight, so that the momentum it creates overwhelms and crushes your opponent, no matter how well they’re doing.”
If anyone knows about momentum and how to swing it, it’s Tom Brady. Not only was his 25-point comeback by far the biggest in Super Bowl history (no other team has come back from down more than 10 in the Big Game), but he’s also the King of the Comebacks.
Along with basically every other QB record in NFL history, Brady also owns the marks for most regular season (46) and postseason (9) comebacks. He’s also No. 1 for game-winning drives as well, with 58 in the regular season and 14 in the playoffs.
