By the Numbers: Celtics could complete historic comeback in Game 7 against Heat

The Miami Heat were one-tenth of a second from advancing to the NBA Finals on Saturday night. Then, Derrick White streaked to the basket, put back a Marcus Smart miss and gave the Boston Celtics their third straight win in the Eastern Conference Finals after falling behind 3-0 in the series.

On Monday night, the Celtics will host the Heat with a chance to make NBA history. Of course, Miami can totally redeem itself by getting one more win in Boston, where the Celtics just happen to be a pretty pedestrian 5-5 during the 2023 NBA Playoffs.

Before we roll the ball out, let’s take a look at some numbers from both the recent and long-term past to help contextualize this winner-take-all showdown.

ZERO: Number of NBA teams that have ever come back to win a best-of-seven series after falling behind 3-0. Boston is just the fourth team to even force a Game 7 after slipping into a 3-0 hole, following the 1951 New York Knicks, 1994 Denver Nuggets and 2003 Portland Trail Blazers.

FIVE: Number of NHL and MLB squads that have come back to win a best-of-seven set after falling behind 3-0. Four hockey teams — the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, the 1975 New York Islanders, the 2010 Philadelphia Flyers and the 2014 Los Angeles Kings — pulled it off. The one baseball squad that did it? Boston, of course, when the Red Sox roared back in the 2004 ALCS to stun the New York Yankees — then won four more in the World Series to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals.

20 PER CENT: That was the Celtics’ shooting percentage from beyond the three-point arc in Game 6, their worst mark of the entire season including the regular calendar and playoffs. They still managed a 104-103 victory. Boston shot 29.2 per cent from three in the first three games of the series but have climbed to 34.5 per cent in the past three. Miami, meanwhile, was hitting on a crazy amount of threes through three contests — a mind-bending 47.8 per cent — but have predictably cooled off and connected on 36.5 per cent of three-point attempts in Games 4 through 6.

120.7: The number of points Miami averaged through the first three games of the series. In Games 4 through 6, the Heat have put up just 99.7 points-per-game. The Heat, of course, entered the main draw of the NBA Playoffs as the lowest-ranked seed in the bracket. In the regular season, Miami finished dead last in points-per-game with 109.5.

MINUS-44: Jimmy Butler is the engine that drives the Heat and in Miami’s victories in this series, the 33-year-old has a plus-42 rating. Since things have gone south, though, Butler’s plus/minus has plummeted to an awful minus-44 mark for an incredible 86-point swing. Butler had 11 steals in Games 1 through 3, but has just four since.

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15: During the first three games of the series, Boston turned the ball over an average of 15 times per night. The Celtics have managed to cut that back to 10 turnovers per game since then.

14: These two teams met one year ago in a seven-game East final, which went Boston’s way when Butler’s three-point attempt with 17 seconds to go in the game hit the front of the rim and clanked out, preserving a 98-96 Boston lead that concluded as a 100-96 victory. That means, when they square off Monday night, it will mark the 14th Eastern Conference Finals game played between these squads in roughly 12 months.

20: Should the Celtics win Game 7 and advance to their second straight NBA Finals to face the Denver Nuggets, they will have done so in 20 post-season games, one below the max of 21 (not including play-in games) after beating the Atlanta Hawks in six games and requiring the full seven to defeat the Philadelphia 76ers.

SIX: Tonight marks the sixth time already in these playoffs that Boston has faced elimination; twice against the Sixers and three times in these series versus Miami. The Heat’s season could have ended in their second play-in game — a 102-91 victory over the Chicago Bulls — but Monday is the first time since the start of seven-game series play that Miami can be sent packing after five- and six-game wins to start the “real” playoffs.

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