CLEVELAND(Ohio) • Avery Bradley rattled in a game-winning three pointer at the buzzer - with the ball touching every part of the rim before bouncing in - as the Boston Celtics clawed their way back into the National Basketball Association (NBA) Eastern Conference finals series with a 111-108 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday.

"Thank God it's bouncing on the rim because that's taking time," Celtics coach Brad Stevens said. "If it goes in or doesn't go in, they have a time out left. So when it bounced around, I was actually hoping it went in, obviously, but not completely disappointed that it was bouncing up there."

Boston cut the Cavaliers' series lead to 2-1 as their improbable victory came despite the absence of star guard Isaiah Thomas, who is out for the remainder of the season with a hip injury.

"Everybody had to step up their game, especially with one of our brothers down," Thomas' replacement Marcus Smart said. "We haven't really had a great shooting performance this series, but tonight was one of those nights. We fought and came out with the victory."

Game Four of the Eastern Conference finals is tomorrow.

Cleveland not only surrendered a 21-point lead in but blew chances to set a play-off record for consecutive wins (14), dating to Game Five of last year's NBA finals, and to become the fourth team in history to start the playoffs 11-0.

"I didn't have it tonight," their star player LeBron James said. "We have been playing so well, but when another team is playing that well then you know that the team that gets the last shot is going to win."

Smart scored a career-high 27 points while Bradley added 20.

"The key for us was to chip away," said Bradley, who made eight three-pointers for the game. "We needed to get stops and make plays on the offensive end."

Al Horford added 16 points and Kelly Olynyk contributed 15 off the bench for the Celtics, who were beaten by an average of 28.5 points in the first two games.

The Celtics also kept James in check on Sunday. The Cleveland forward finished with just 11 points on four-of-13 shooting and was held scoreless in the fourth quarter. He also had five turnovers.

Kyrie Irving paced the Cleveland offence with 29 points and Kevin Love added 28 points and 10 rebounds. Tristan Thompson scored 18 points.

The Cavaliers shot just two-of-17 from three-point range in the second half but still led by as many as 21 points at the start of the third quarter. Cleveland dominated the Celtics so thoroughly in the first two games that not many gave Boston a chance on Sunday, especially without Thomas in the line-up.

But Cleveland coach Tyronn Lue expected Boston to battle to the end. "They have a scrappy team," he said.

Coming into Sunday's contest, the Cavaliers had lost just one game at home to a team from the East in the play-offs dating to 2015.

"You have to have some type of adversity to be successful," James said.

"So I am happy it happened now. We have to regroup and get back to playing desperate basketball."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS

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