If Trump won AZ and GA, and the election came down to PA, the effort you’re seeing now would’ve been more focused, and GOP officials more tempted to help. If you can’t recognize ways that could’ve gone bad—not guaranteed, but not negligible—I question your ability to assess risk.
Which is exactly why they paused the counting in four states in different time zones at the same time - by making the first move they escalated by making it so that the only way out was demonstrating a centralized multi-state conspiracy. There's no face-saving countermove.