NEW YORK – Members of the Boston Celtics were already talking about a return trip to South Florida mere moments after the team averted a sweep at the hands of the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals.
While talk is cheap, the conversation will become real if the Celtics can fend off elimination for the second consecutive contest on Thursday (Friday morning, Singapore time) when they host the Heat in Game 5 in Boston.
“We want to come back to Miami,” Jaylen Brown said, after the second-seeded Celtics avoided the brooms with a 116-99 victory in Game 4 on Tuesday.
“We wanted to come out and play together, have some pride about yourself and find a way to win a game. We’re all more than capable of doing it. We got it done.”
Despite the win, they still trail 3-1 in the best-of-seven series to the eighth-seeded Heat.
“Yeah, everybody was in good spirits, everybody was upbeat, and as cliche as it sounds, we just tried to take it one game at a time,” Jayson Tatum added.
“We didn’t play well the first three games. We didn’t deserve to win, but we didn’t want that to define us, define the season. We’ve still got a long uphill battle to go. But (Tuesday) was a good start. Just to try to carry this momentum towards Thursday.”
TD Garden has not been kind to the home tenants in the post-season, however. The Celtics have lost five of their past seven games in Boston.
That said, the Heat had won all six of their home play-off games before Tuesday’s tumble in Miami.
The Heat were denied in their first opportunity to punch their ticket to the NBA Finals for the second time in four seasons. They also were thwarted in their first chance to join the 1998-99 New York Knicks as the only eighth-seeded teams in the league to advance to the NBA Finals.
But Miami star Jimmy Butler refused to get too down after seeing the team’s initial opportunities go by the boards.
“The only thing I’m going to say is we’ll be OK,” he said.
“Let’s get back to doing what we’ve always done to get us to this point. Continually have belief in one another, knowing that we are going to win, and we will. We’ve just got to play harder.
“There’s not too much to say with this group because we already know. So we’ve just got to go out there and execute.”
The positive for them is no team have ever come back from a 3-0 series deficit in the NBA play-offs and the Heat remain clear favourites and need only one more win to progress to the NBA Finals against the Denver Nuggets.
The question is, after an unexpected run as the eighth seeds in the East, will the Heat players suffer a loss of energy and spirit?
“I didn’t sense any of that,” said Miami coach Erik Spoelstra.
“This is great competition. We have great respect for Boston, what they are capable of.
“They are a dynamic offensive team that combine extraordinary effort and commitment to get the job done. But our guys really want this.”
Miami, who lost to Atlanta in their first play-in game and then beat top-seeded Milwaukee in the first round before dealing with the New York Knicks, have been at their best when under pressure.
“We know and everybody else knows, we don’t typically get things done the easy way over here,” said forward Caleb Martin.
“This is right up our alley. This is the way it goes for us. I think it’s only going to prepare us for the long run. This could be good for us.” REUTERS, AFP
