Celtics defeat Heat after White’s explosive performance

BOSTON — From hit series to serious series, the boston celtics they are transforming the Eastern Conference finals.

They’re still in a big hole, but they easily won again Thursday, 110-97, in Game 5 over the Miami Heatwith four of their starters scoring at least 20 points, and now they are two wins away from becoming the first team to nba history to win a series after trailing, 3-0.

Game 6 is at 8:30 p.m. Saturday in Miami. The Celtics have won the last two games by a combined 30 points. Boston never trailed Thursday and led by as many as 24 — it was a 15-point game after the first quarter.

“It just says we have our backs against the wall and we stick together and we’re competing at a high level to give ourselves a chance,” Boston coach Joe Mazzulla said.

The Celtics’ backyard white derrick and smart marcus They easily had their best games in the series. They took advantage of the absence of the Heat’s starting point guard gabe vincent (left ankle sprain) and victim Max Strus and Vincent’s replacement, Kyle Lowry.

White, who started the conference finals as a reserve, had 24 points on six 3-pointers with two steals. Smart added 23 points (four 3-pointers) and five steals.

“He just plays with defensive versatility and does a great job paying attention to the details of personnel tendencies,” Mazzulla said of White. And of Smart, he said: “It’s just an emotional cue for us. When he is locked in and plays both sides of the ball at a different pace, he gives us our identity and our life.”

jayson tatum almost reached a triple double (21 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds and jaylen brown added 21 points). Tatum got it going for Boston with 12 in the first, including a dunk with 3:18 remaining that prompted Miami’s second outing of the game. The Celtics were already up 15 by then and the closest the game would get was 11 points, in the second quarter.

Neither Bam Adebayo (16 points, eight rebounds) nor jimmy butler (14 points) played in the fourth quarter of this blowout. Miami turned to Haywood Highsmith for the first time in this series and delivered off the bench with 15 points, as did caleb martin (14 points) and robinson duncan (18 points).

Lowry and Strus gave the Heat little (combining for eight points on 3-of-10 shooting). Miami again was a mess with turnovers (16 to 27 Celtics points) and allowed 17 second-chance points. The Celtics, continuing another recent trend, were hot again from 3-point range.

“His activity level has gone up in the last two games, and that’s what you’d expect in a competitive playoff series,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “And then we’re playing in a crowd quite a bit. That there might be some good things to that, if we read the game, read the coverages, and make the appropriate plays.

“But you have to give them credit for the activity,” Spoelstra continued. “We got stuck several times in the paint with fast hands, nudity, things of that nature. We have to shore that up. It’s two games in a row of that. We have to be aggressive and then make the appropriate plays with the appropriate space.”

Only one more win would bring this series back to Boston for an improbable Game 7 on Monday, with plenty of history on the line, as well as an NBA Finals berth against the Los Angeles Lakers. denver nuggets.

As you know, none of the 150 teams that fell behind 3-0 in a series have ever won again. Only three teams have forced a Game 7. Not too long ago, the Celtics were about to be swept, and fair questions were being asked about Mazzulla’s future in Boston and the future of the roster as it stands.

“Yeah, obviously Game 3 was tough, but I mean, all year we’ve been connected in the locker room, we’ve supported each other, and I was sure we’d go back and just compete,” White said. . “We’ve been doing that for these last two games.”

On the other hand, the Heat are (still) trying to become the second No. 8 seed to reach a final and the first since 1999. They’re 0-for-2 in their first two attempts and don’t. I want to see how 0-3 feels.

“The last two games are not who we are,” Butler said. “It just happened to be that way. We stopped playing defense in the middle because we didn’t make the shots we wanted to make. But that is easily correctable. You just have to go out there and play harder from the jump. As I always say, it will all be smiles and we will keep it very, very, very consistent, knowing that we are going to win the next game.”

The Celtics look like themselves

It took until halftime of Game 4 for the Celtics to figure things out, but they put together their wall-to-wall masterpiece in Game 5 to make the possibility of an 0-3 comeback seem surprisingly real.

Boston’s contested shot has been unsustainably good, but their attention to detail and intensity in every aspect of their identity and scheme on both ends has returned in full force. —Weiss

Boston Peak Basketball

Tatum finally sorted out Miami’s defense and seems so comfortable drawing doubles and finding shooters. The team is moving the ball quickly and decisively, and the defensive pressure has been adequate without going overboard. The individual defense from Butler and Adebayo has been incredible, and Boston is improving their space in transition from their myriad deflections.

This is the pinnacle of Celtics basketball, and it looks like they can pull off the greatest comeback in history if they keep this approach. —Weiss

The Celtics play with intensity

The Celtics had the intensity from the start. On the first play, Smart stripped Adebayo of the ball and dove down the court to strip him of possession. From there, Boston forced 15 more turnovers, including five more from Adebayo.

In fact, Boston was outscored after opening the game on a 20-5 run, but held a comfortable margin the rest of the way. Tatum didn’t have a great scoring game but he controlled everything with his offensive reads. — King

What did Heat fight for?

The Celtics aren’t giving Adebayo anything on offense, which is one of the ways this series has changed. After attempting just seven shots with four turnovers in Game 4, Adebayo had six turnovers Thursday. Boston collapses on him and takes the ball from him.

Adebayo isn’t making his move fast enough or finding the open teammate when the double team arrives; in part because the Heat don’t move as much without the ball. On a night that Vincent was out, and in a season in which Miami often used Adebayo to facilitate offense, not being able to get him going or find something to counter Boston’s turnaround on defense was a downer. recipe for the disaster that unfolded. — vardon

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(Photo: Winslow Townson/USA Today)