United States. – The Boston Celtics crushed the Miami Heat (110-97) with an undoubted display of basketball and confirmed the victory in Miami two days before 2-3 in the NBA Finals to get closer to the NBA East and feed their ambitions. achieve a new comeback after losing 0-3 in the series.
The Celtics are at their best when they are stuck against the wall. The Garden TD game was their fourth win in these life-or-death games and the pressure is on for the Heat with Joe Mazzulla’s men coming into Miami on Saturday for game six with a tailwind despite going down in the series.
A battle against history for the Celtics, 17-time NBA champions. No franchise has managed to advance after going down 3-0 in a playoff series in 150 games. After his exhibition at TD Garden, Boston is halfway there.
The Celtics got used to the struggles that had already had their slowest start to the regular season last year, before taking off and flying to the finals against the Golden State Warriors. However, that season was also far from undefeated on the Boston Green and his record two years ago at home in the playoffs was 10-11 before this matchup.
The answer was quite and vehement. The Garden TD had a monologue from the Celtics, who took the advantage from the start and never gave it up, except to reduce their returns in the last minutes, with no stars on the track. They always win in this season, when they exceed 40% of three-point shots and this Thursday they sign 16 of their 39 attempts (41%).
Derrick White was the main scorer with 24 points and a tremendous six of eight on three-pointers. Marcus Smart chipped in 23 points, with four 3-pointers, Jayson Tatum chipped in 21 points, eight rebounds and eleven assists, and Jaylen Brown chipped in with 21.
In Calo, who still can’t count on Tyler Herro because of broken hands and who couldn’t make the field of Gabe Vincent because of a sprained ankle, Jimmy Butler didn’t exceed four points and Bam Adebayo scored 16. Eric Spoelstra’s team had a good contribution. off his bench, with 18 points from Duncan Robinson, 15 from Haywood Highsmith and 14 from Caleb Martin, but never had an advantage in the game.
Chat to bite
It was played in a packed TD garden ready for great opportunities, and the Celtics came out to bite from the first moment, attacking every play, strong from the three-point line and seasoned on the rebound.
Four Celtics players already had double figures in the half with 61 points, led by Jaylen Brown’s fifteen and Derrick White’s fourteen; Tatum was twelve and Marcus Smart was thirteen.
The latter, the best champion of the previous year, connected with a triple in the first period, which was a 12-0 run by the Celtics, to start laying the ground in the middle (18-5). In this play, there was the work of Horford, who had one of three offensive rebounds in the first half and grabbed an assist.
Another triple, this time signed by White in the bombardier of the first quarter, sent clear signals to Calo, who drew fifteen points after the first period and reached twenty in the second deficit after passing a new 12-3 (61-. 41).
Boston shot over 40% in that first half and already had thirteen second chance points in the first half.
WHITE, SNIPER
In both Game 1 and Game 2 of this series, the Celtics scored double digits in the Garden. They didn’t make that mistake again Thursday. Dominating from start to finish, they continued to hurt the Heat from 3-point range, fueled by White, the sting, and Marco Smart.
They reached an advantage of 23 points, when Tatum also gave himself the rhythm to his teammates (five assists), and the Heat, despite Bam Adebayo’s ten points, found no answers to the momentum of the place.
White finished the game with six eight three-pointers and was the top scorer for the Celtics, who increased their lead to 24 points at 96-72.
All this turned into the final minutes and Mazzulla rested the stars with their eyes already set on the sixth game. Spoelstra did the same with his coaches.
Of course, a drop in Celtic’s concentration was used by the Heat to score ten points, although the duel was already doomed.
A series that seemed doomed three days ago is now open, with the Celtics in the midst of a historic miracle.
