2023-05-30 04:49:25
No one in NBA history came back from 3-0 and neither did the Boston Celtics. 151 eliminatory and 151 defeats of the team that tried the comeback. Miami Heat will play the NBA Finals against the Denver Nuggets starting at dawn on Friday (02:30, Movistar +) with the champion of the West as a favorite. The Nuggets have been waiting for a rival for more than a week and will look for their first ring against a group that nobody counted on at this point. The Heat reached the playoffs as the eighth team in the East. They lost the first game of the play-in against the Hawks and had to beat the Bulls to be among the best. Then they took out the Bucks (4-1), the best team in the League, liquidated the Knicks (4-2) and ended up knocking down the Celtics in Game 7 in Boston.
In the seventh game of the semifinals against the Sixers, the Celtics had a superb Jayson Tatum. The forward scored 51 points and was the decisive piece for the team to reach the Eastern final. In the first minute of Game 7 against the Heat, Tatum sprained his left ankle in a nasty fall on Vincent. With Tatum touched, the first quarter was already a nightmare for the locals. They stayed at 15 points, the worst scoring in a quarter all season. The Celtics were shipwrecked from the outside shot with a blushing 0/10 in triples.
Miami overcame a slack start and when the team stabilized they had a 17-point lead in the second quarter (21-38). The Celtics scored their first triple on the thirteenth attempt and that encouraged them to continue testing from long distance. The success improved, because it was impossible to get worse, but when the Boston team closed the gap (39-47) Jimmy Butler appeared (28 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists). The Heat star, far from his best level, left a couple of details so that the differences remained above ten points.
The importance of Butler in the Heat goes far beyond the specific sensations at specific moments of the games. That’s why the Heat came back to take off clinging to him at the beginning of the third quarter. They had one possession to go even for 18-19 points and the Celtics latched on to Derrick White. The hero of Game 6 was the Celtics’ only reliable player. His streak wasn’t enough to counter the butler’s harness and the ongoing input from Caleb Martin. Martin’s role exemplifies what the Heat are like when it comes to competing. He came to the franchise as a free agent after being released from the Hornets. Rapper J. Cole called in former Heat player and coaching staff Caron Butler to try it out. He stayed on the squad. And in the playoffs he has become a determining player. He has doubled the 9 points he averaged in the first round and in Game 7 he was a nightmare for the Celtics. When the Bostonians got closer again, Martin was unleashed and at the beginning of the last quarter he already had 26 points, 10 rebounds and 3 assists. That fed Butler and the Heat broke away again (66-83).
It was the final one. Tatum was lame, the three-point percentage was still ridiculous, and the Heat added more elements to the work of Butler and Martin. The Celtics did not make history, the Heat returned to the Finals and the flight to Denver was already waiting for them because the series against the Nuggets starts early on Friday.
84. Boston Celtics (15+26+25+18): Smart (9), White (18), Brown (19), Tatum (14) y Horford (8) -quinteto titular- Brogdon (0), G. Williams (3), R. Williams (8), Hauser (2), Pritchard (0), Kornet (0) y Muscala (3).
103. Miami Heat (22+30+24+27): Vincent (10), Strus (8), Butler (28), Martin (26) and Adebayo (12) – the starting quintet – Lowry (7), Highsmith (2), Robinson (10), Jovic (0) and Yurtseven (1). 0).
Referees: Brothers, Foster, and Vogel. No deleted.
Incidences: 19,580 spectators at the TD Garden in Boston. Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final.
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