THE BUBBLE — With the Boston Celtics looking down the barrow of elimination on Friday night down 3-1 to the Miami Heat. It was like the old timers used to say, “Gut check time!” Getting out of the whip slowly in the first half, things didn’t look good for Brad Stevens squad. However, they came out of the break and did work. When the smoke cleared they were walking out of the joint with a 121-108 win to live in the bubble yet another day.
Down 58-51 at the break the Celtics looked sluggish and boyz were back at the hotel packing their things up. If they didn’t turn things around in the second half the engine would be purring on the chartered jet ready to go back to Boston ASAP. However, Big Momma must have came in and cursed them up one wall and down the other at the break because they were a completely different team in the second half.
They put up a 41 point third quarter and at one point went on a 20-3 run. Miami only scored 25 points in that quarter as Boston poured it on.
The Celtics were not ready to go home just yet. So they called over to the duns packing their things up and told them to hold on a second in their Big Momma voice.
A tremendous defensive effort held the Heat to 7-of-36 shooting from behind the arc which was 19 percent for the evening. That’s NUTS!!!
Jayson Tatum led the way for the C’s with 31 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists followed by Jaylen Brown’s 28 point. Both Kemba Walker and Daniel Theis dropped off 15 each with Gordon Hayward coming off of the bench with 10.
Goran Dragic led the Heat with 23 points as all five starters finished in double figures. Duncan Robinson had 20, Jimmy Butler 17, Jae Crowder finished with 14 and Bam Adebayo came through with 13. Even with Tyler Herro’s 14 off of the bench it wasn’t enough.
In the postgame Brad Stevens had this to say, “Our deal was to come out and play, come out and compete, give it our best shot and I thought we played pretty well in the second half. But we’re going to have to do it again and again because of the position we’re in.”
Game 6 is on Sunday! In my Bart Scott voice, “Can’t Wait!”
