It’s no brick in the Wall
Guard’s late 3 denies Celts series closeout
WASHINGTON — John Wall pulled up 26 feet from the basket, on the right side of the arc with 3.9 seconds left, and as Avery Bradley saw the ball leave the Washington guard’s fingertips, he said a little prayer.
“Just hoping it didn’t go in,” said the Celtics guard. “He made a good shot. John Wall is a very fast guy, and one of his strengths is getting to the basket. You live with that, but it’s unfortunate.”
The Washington guard’s bomb squelched the Celtics’ attempt to close out their Eastern Conference semifinal series on the road, handing the Celtics a 92-91 Game 6 loss, and sending this series back to the Garden for Game 7 on Monday night.
Wall, who struggled from the floor for most of the night making just 9-of-25 shots, drained the biggest basket of the game — maybe the series — four seconds after Al Horford gave the Celtics a 91-89 lead with a 15-foot banker off an Isaiah Thomas swing pass.
The Celtics’ Bradley, who has known Wall since they were both seniors in high school, never considered the outcome decided even with his team up by two inside the final 10 seconds, especially not with Wall (26 points) and Bradley Beal (33) on the floor for Washington.
“Never . . . can’t,” he said. “You never think it’s over until the sound goes off.”
Even after Wall’s clutch shot, the Celtics still had 3.5 seconds with the ball and with hope for a final opportunity.
Until Washington’s Kelly Oubre Jr. delivered the most positive foul of the game after the Celtics allowed the clock to run down to 1.7 seconds before Kelly Olynyk broke free to take an Isaiah Thomas pass under the basket. Oubre, who was suspended for Game 4 after knocking Olynyk to the floor in Game 3, this time made appropriate contact.
The Wizards had a foul to give, and Oubre was able to foul Olynyk and disrupt the play before the Celtics forward could grab the ball and put up a shot.
The Celtics now had 1.7 seconds left, and were left with Thomas attempting a deep miss from the left side of the arc as time expired.
“I thought it was going in. Honestly, I did,” he said. “It was a tough shot, they had a couple guys on me, but that was the only shot we could have got there. It didn’t go in.”
Thomas was too hard on himself. Despite the Celtics taking the lead on Horford’s late shot, the Celtics made their share of mistakes in the last minute, starting with a Thomas turnover that set up a Beal 3-pointer, which cut the Celtics’ lead to 87-85.
Thomas dug the hole deeper by putting up an air ball under pressure from Wall, before fouling the Washington guard on the drive down the other end. The result was two Wall free throws for an 87-87 tie.
Bradley buried a 20-footer for the C’s. Beal answered with a driving banker for an 89-89 tie with 28.7 seconds left, and the game lurched into the final three possessions.
“I had nowhere to go. I gotta be better in that situation but they did a really good job of doing that,” Thomas said of his late turnover. “They’re trapping, they took away the next pass as well. They hadn’t really been doing that all game. And we weren’t alert — or I wasn’t alert as well, so that’s definitely on me. I gotta do a better job in that situation. I mean, shoot, Beal hits a 3 and that was his first 3 all day. Then the next play, Wall gets to the foul line.
“You gotta tip your hat off to those guys, they kept fighting,” he said. “But we played a hell of a game, as well, too. At the end of the day, you’ll live with a John Wall contested 3-pointer from deep.”
But now comes a moment that Thomas can truly live for — Game 7 at home.
“That’s where all the great players make their name. You gotta give it everything you’ve got,” he said. “I guess that’s where legends are born. I’m excited. We couldn’t take care of business tonight, an unbelievable shot by John Wall. To have Game 7 back in Boston in the Garden.
“If you had said that back in October, that there’d be a Game 7 in the second round, a lot of people probably wouldn’t even believe that,” said Thomas. “So we’re excited. I mean, it hurts right now because we just lost. We have nothing to hold our heads down about, we’re going to take a few days to figure out our adjustments and win Game 7.”