Derrick White’s buzzer-beating putback moved the Boston Celtics to the brink of the greatest comeback in NBA playoffs history, holding off the Miami Heat 104-103 to force a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference finals.
Referees reviewed it, but it did not take long to give the official word as pandemonium broke out in the Kaseya Center.
“Ball came to me,” White said. “I made the shot. Season was on the line and we don’t want to go home”.
The 27-year-old became the second player in NBA history to hit a buzzer-beater with his team trailing and facing elimination – Michael Jordan’s “The Shot” for Chicago against Cleveland in 1989 being the other.
His team-mates Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, who respectively scored 31 and 26 points, also broke records as their contributions led to the Celtics becoming the fourth NBA team to erase a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series and force a deciding game.
The others in that club – the 1951 New York Knicks in the NBA Finals, the 1994 Denver Nuggets in the second round and the 2003 Portland Trail Blazers in the first round – all lost Game 7, all on the road.
Boston, however, is going home for its shot at history. Game 7 is in the early hours of Tuesday morning on the Celtics’ floor, a matchup that will decide who meets the Western Conference champion Denver Nuggets in a title series that will start Thursday.
The Heat made it appear as if they might be turning the tide as Jimmy Butler made three free throws with 3.0 seconds left after Al Horford fouled him.
With the foul was originally called with 2.1 seconds left, the referees put 0.9 seconds back on after reviewing the play for a one-point Heat lead. It capped a Miami rally from 10 points down with less than four minutes remaining.
The Celtics had White inbound the ball on the game’s final possession, and he passed to Smart – who missed a three-pointer. But White sprinted from the inbound spot to the rim, the ball fell into his hands and he got the lay-in away just before time ran out to extend Boston’s season.
Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla was asked what went through his mind at that moment.
“Nothing,” Mazzulla said. “Game 7.”
His opponents, who have now lost as many games this week – three – as they had in their first 14 playoff games this spring, have got to rally themselves ahead of the final matchup of the series.
“We’ve got to go on the road and do something special,” Butler reinforced. “But we’ve got a special group.”
“I don’t know how we’re going to get this done, but we’re going to go out there and get it done,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra added. “And that’s what the next 48 hours is about. There’s been nothing easy about this season for our group, and so we just have to do it the hard way.”
