Sometimes things happen that are not easy to explain. Like what a team that with 3 minutes left to finish the play-in was losing and is now 48 minutes away from getting into the Finals of the NBA. or like what the second best team in the regular season and one of the two great candidates to win the ring all year go 0-3 down after falling by 26 points. But in life and in basketball things like that happen. Things like that are happening. And we are watching them live. The Miami Heat have swept the Boston Celtics in the third game of the Eastern final (128-102) and if they win tomorrow, again in Miami, they will be finalists in the NBA.
The game was presumed tough, with the Celtics blowing the bugle to counterattack after losing twice at home and being 0-2. It was the day to show that the spirit still remained within them. necessary to trust your ring options. All that has vanished in one fell swoop after playing what was surely his worst game these playoffs. And there have been some already forgotten, against Atlanta or Philadelphia. By the way, what are they thinking in Philadelphia watching this series… But what happened tonight in Boston was inversely proportional to what happened in Miami. The worse the visitors played, the better the locals did, who as Bam Adebayo later explained, they saw the hoop as big “as the ocean”. They made 56.8% of their shots, 54.3% of the triples.
A 3-point play by Marcus Smart made it 61-49 as soon as the third quarter began after having been losing 22 in the first half. There It seemed that the Celtics were getting into the game, but it was a mirage. What followed was a 28-7 run. to enlarge the distance up to 33 points. The beating was a reality. No one was spared from the burning in Boston. Neither Jayson Tatum (harmless double-double with a 1/7 in triples), nor Jaylen Brown (12 points missing the 7 triples he tried). If anything Smart, who touched the triple-double and only He signed a -6 on track, when the rest of the main rotation reached negative double digits in the +/-. Opposite was the great day of the group, of the secondary, so important in a team that has pulled Jimmy Butler like never before to get here, but who has been supported by a series of players with little name and a great desire to do things well. As Gabe Vincent, who achieved the best score of his career with 29 points. As Duncan Robinsonousted from the rotation during the regular season and who with the 5 triples last night, he has surpassed LeBron James as the Heat player who has made the most three-pointers in the playoffs.
The truth is that if the Heat end up knocking out the Celtics, and they look like they’re going to be that way because no one has ever come back from 3-0 down, the surprise is going to be capital. Not because they don’t deserve it, in this tie and in all the ones they have overcome previously. But yes by precedents. Miami finished the regular season as the team that scored the fewest points of all. Only two teams, the Pistons in 1956 and the Warriors in 1964, reached the Finals as the lowest scoring team in the competition. tonight have become the first eighth seed to win a playoff game by more than 25 points since 1984. And, of course, most important of all. If they finally make it to the Finals, they’ll be the second franchise in history to do so since the eighth and final playoff spot. Only the Knicks have achieved it so far in 1999, the year of lockout. In a season of 82 games, no one has done it. But these Heat are a walking miracle capable of anything. Let them tell the Bucks and the Knicks. Let them tell the Celtics.
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