Anatomy of agony: Everything about the moment that turned Heat jubilation into Celtics celebration
Celtics #Celtics
BOSTON – So what went wrong on the play Saturday night that in an instant turned triumph into torment for the Miami Heat?
Everything.
And nothing.
“Sometimes,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, “things don’t break your way. I don’t think there are any regrets on that. It’s just a shame.”
For as stunning and staggering as the impact Derrick White’s buzzer-beating putback was in the Boston Celtics 104-103 victory – a moment that took the Heat from an NBA Finals berth instead to a Monday 8:30 p.m. Game 7 at TD Garden – it was a play that had the Heat properly positioned . . . until they weren’t.
Or, as Celtics guard Jaylen Brown said, “Derrick White like a flash of lightning just came out of nowhere and saved the day, man. It was just an incredible play.”
The setup: His team down 10 with 4:10 to play, Spoelstra put his team into a zone defense for the first time in the game.
The approach, as it did earlier in the series, when the Heat took a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven matchup, stifled the Celtics, with Boston missing its next six shots.
“Bricks,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said of those attempts. “They went zone, slowed us down a little bit. We got some really good looks. Just didn’t make them.”
The review: With 2.1 seconds remaining and the Heat down 102-100, Celtics center Al Horford was called for a two-shot foul by referee Josh Tiven on a Jimmy Butler corner jumper.
Having used their coach’s challenge at the start of their second half, the Heat could not challenge that Butler was behind the 3-point line and therefore due three free throws.
The Celtics, however, challenged whether a foul should have been ruled.
The review allowed the officials both on site and at the NBA Replay Center in Secaucus, N.J., to inspect all aspects of the play, with a bobble by Butler not ruled what would have been considered a double-dribble, and therefore a turnover, giving possession to the Celtics.
After the review it was determined that Butler was behind the 3-point line, but that the foul occurred with 3 seconds remaining. That decision proved crucial in light of White’s winning basket being shot with one-tenth of a second to play.
Butler drained all three free throws, to close at 12 of 14 from the line, for a 103-102 Heat lead.
The reset: The Celtics then called their final timeout, with the Heat substituting Max Strus for Duncan Robinson, leaving Butler, Strus, Bam Adebayo, Caleb Martin and Gabe Vincent on the floor against the Celtics’ White, Horford, Marcus Smart, Jayson Tatum and Brown.
The Heat had the option of substituting in Haywood Highsmith for his superior defensive ability rather than Strus,. But Highsmith had not played to that point.
The play: White inbounded from the left sideline in front of the Heat bench to Smart, with Butler denying a pass to Tatum, who led the Celtics with 31 points. Tatum also drew the defensive attention of Strus, who was assigned to guard the inbounder but played off the ball for such assistance on Tatum.
“We drew up a play, they kind of took away that,” Tatum acknowledged. “I was trying to get the ball. Jimmy and Strus jumped out to me,”
Smart, who shot .336 this season on 3-pointers and .371 this postseason, was off with a 26-foot turnaround attempt with one second to play.
But after initially setting up in the left corner for a shot, White then darted to the rim, caught a perfect carom of Smart’s miss, and beat the buzzer with a tip layup, replay confirming he had beaten the expiration of the clock.
“A hell of a bounce,” Martin said of White finding the ball and the ball finding White for the rebound that left each team with 47 at the close.
Strus actually closed ground quickly to attempt to contest White’s winning shot but was a fraction of a second late in a game decided by a fraction of a second.
“There really was nobody on me,” White said. “So I just spaced to the corner and, when he shot it, just tried to crash. Ball came to me; I made the shot.”
The coverage: Strus did as the entire roster was instructed, helping keep Tatum from getting the final shot.
“Max did the right thing,” Spoelstra said, “making that ball go anywhere but Jayson Tatum.”
Vincent did as needed, staying with Smart the entire sequence and forcing an off-balance attempt.
Adebayo boxed out Brown from a potential deep rebound on the long shot.
Martin kept Horford from racing in for a rebound from the opposite corner.
Butler neutralized Tatum on the play.
And then time stopped, as the timing of White’s putback was reviewed.
“Everybody,” White said of his teammates, “was asking me, ‘Did you get it off?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I think so,’ but it was so close, you never know.”
Or, as Tatum put it in three words, “Oh my God.”
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