The Manila Times

CELTICS EYE RUBBER MATCH AS HEAT GO FOR THE KILL

MIAMI: Maybe Kevin Garnett was right. Maybe, as he screamed in celebration of Boston’s 2008 NBA championship, anything truly is possible.

Even the impossible.

The Celtics are halfway to history, and that alone has gotten them entry into a very small club. Of the first 150 teams that trailed a bestof-seven series 3-0 in NBA history, just 14 — 9.3 percent — found a way to extend the matchup to Game 6. None of them have won the series, and most are usually eliminated by now.

Not the Celtics. They have cut the deficit in the Eastern Conference finals against the Miami Heat to 3-2, simultaneously trailing the series yet seeming to have all the momentum going into Game 6 in Miami on Saturday night.

“Obviously, we didn’t imagine being in this position, being down 3-0, but when adversity hits, you get to see what a team is really made of,” Celtics forward Jaylen Brown said.

Only three teams have gone from down 3-0 to tied 3-3; the Celtics could be the fourth with a win on Saturday. No NBA team has ever fully escaped the 3-0 hole, but a win on Saturday would give Boston a chance to change that in Game 7 — which would be Monday on its home floor.

“One of our assistants put it in great perspective: The seasons are like nine months long, and we just had a bad week,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said.

The Heat had a nine-point lead in the third quarter of Game 4, in position to perhaps win in a sweep. The lead was gone two-anda-half minutes later, and the Celtics haven’t trailed since. An 18-0 run in Game 4 put Boston on top of that game for good, a 12-0 run by the Celtics later in that game ended all doubt, and then they started Game 5 with a 20-5 burst.

Add that all up, and from the start of the third-quarter run in Game 4 to the end of the start-of-game spurt in Game 5, the Celtics outscored the Heat, 84-43, in a span of 27 minutes.

“The last two games are not who we are. It just happened to be that way,” Heat forward Jimmy Butler said.

At least the confidence isn’t ailing. Everything else is.

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra flatly shot down the notion that Miami has an excuse for the way it played in Game 5 — “there’s no excuses. Not at all,” he insisted — even though the training room is as crowded as a scrum for a loose ball under a basket right now. The Heat have been shorthanded in the backcourt for the entirety of the playoffs after injuries to shooting guards Tyler Herro and Victor Oladipo, plus they didn’t have starting guard Gabe Vincent for Game 5 and watched Kyle Lowry play through some sort of hand issue.

Miami’s starters were outscored 95-44 in Game 5, and since the start of Boston’s comebacksparking burst in Game 4 the Heat have been outscored 75-33 from 3-point range, allowed the Celtics to shoot 54 percent from the field, 44 percent from 3-point range while committing 26 turnovers to Boston’s 12.

Pick a number. They’re all bad for the Heat, except the one that matters most — 3-2, the series score that means Miami is still only one win from capping its own improbable run of being a No. 8 seed that found its way into the NBA Finals.

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2023-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://manilatimes.pressreader.com/article/282145000720872

The Manila Times