The Celtics won an agonizing seventh game in Miami and will play the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors starting this Thursday, June 2
In the biggest game of his career, Jayson Tatum, star of the Boston Celticswore a purple bracelet with Kobe Bryant’s 24. The great legend of the Lakers was first his idol and then his mentor, and since his death that is his way of paying tribute to him on special nights. In his first game after the tragedy, during his visits to Los Angeles, on this night the Celtics won in Miami (96-100) to return to the NBA Finals. The first since 2010, where they lost to Kobe Bryant.
His rival for the ring will be the Golden State Warriors, who will play their sixth Finals in eight seasons. The definitive test of that memorable path that the Boston Celtics are signing: in the first round they swept the Brooklyn Nets; later they raised a 3-2 against against the Milwaukee Bucks, defending champions; and now they have won a seventh game away from home.
At the end of the match, Jimmy Butler unga a Tatum after hugging him in the middle of the track. “It’s your time,” she told him. The forward of the Heat, their executioner in the Eastern final in 2020, did not rest a single second throughout the game, but after another portentous performance, playing 94 of the 96 possible minutes in the last two games and scoring 82 points (47 in the sixth, 35 in the seventh), fell at the finish line.
After the Heat pulled within just two points with an 11-0 run down the stretch, Butler threw a triple on the run to try to win the match with 18.7 seconds to go. His logic, although difficult, was to avoid an extension at all costs because Miami was in reserve. It was taking advantage of a meager slit of light, because nothing guaranteed that the best defense of the year would allow a better shot if he played half court.
Back there is the best argument of the Boston Celtics. That they got into the Finals after reaching in the middle of the course with the most defeats (21) what wins (20). That, despite the fact that the attack was not always clear, they marched ahead from start to finish of the game. A long, versatile defense, with Marcus Smart on the toe, the reborn Al Horford as the anchor, and a collection of wingers to shrink the gap.
Tatum (26), Smart (24) and Jaylen Brown (24), pillars of this project that had lost three of the last five Eastern finals, led the victory with which these Celtics finally take the penultimate step. In the 75th anniversary season, the Celtics and Warriors, two of the three franchises that survive from the inaugural course that the NBA takes as a reference, will play for the ring.
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