Adam Silver’s National Basketball Association wrapped up its 75th season a couple of months ago with the Milwaukee Bucks emerging from an 0-2 deficit to repel Monty Williams’s over-achieving (?) Phoenix Suns and lay claim to the 2021 championship.
A defending champion has returned to the final round of the playoffs the following season 36 times, the runners-up 26. The league’s ultimate series has offered a re-match on 16 separate occasions, most recently when the Dubs and Cavs put a four-year stranglehold on the event.
So, history tells us that there is a 21.