Celts knock out 76ers & prize is date with King
BOSTON — With 2.4 seconds left and the Boston Celtics leading by two, Marcus Smart had a chance to clinch Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals and eliminate Philadelphia by making a pair of free throws. He missed the first. He could have made things more difficult for the 76ers by missing the second one on purpose, and forcing them to go the length of the court with the clock running. He chucked it against the rim; it went in.
That gave the 76ers a chance to win with a desperation 3-pointer. The full-court inbounds pass went into the left corner, and who was there to intercept it, heaving it back into the air to run out the clock?
To the surprise of no one in a Celtics uniform, it was Smart.
“That’s a Marcus Smart sequence. That just describes him so well,” guard Jaylen Brown said after Boston beat Philadelphia, 114-112, on Wednesday night to advance to the Eastern Conference finals for the second straight year. “If it came down to one guy coming up with it, everybody’s got their money on Smart.”
Jayson Tatum scored 25 points, Brown had 24 and Terry Rozier scored 17, sinking a pair of free throws to make it a four-point game with 9.8 seconds left after forcing Joel Embiid’s turnover. Al Horford added 15 points and eight rebounds for Boston.
The Celtics will play Cleveland in the Eastern Conference finals for the second straight year. Game 1 is Sunday in Boston. It’s the Celtics’ first back-to-back trips to the conference finals since making it five straight times in the original Big Three era from 1984-88.
BLASTOFF: The buildup for this series truly began in February, with some pointed comments from Golden State’s Draymond Green.
Or in October, when Houston won at Golden State on ring night.
Or in June, when the Rockets landed Chris Paul.
Whenever it started, however it started, it’s clear that this is the series that the NBA-watching world wanted. Western Conference finals, Golden State versus Houston, Game 1 on Monday on the Rockets’ home floor. Series winner to the NBA Finals, series loser will undoubtedly feel like they let a championship ring slip away.
“They got us. We got them,” Green said. “Got to go out there and play. We’ll see who better.”
After more than 10 months of playing, posturing and some pontificating, it really is that simple.
This Rockets team was assembled — the key being the trade for Paul last summer — with hopes of unseating the reigning champion Warriors from their perch atop the NBA. So far, so good. Houston set a franchise record with 65 wins in the regular season, went 2-1 against the Warriors in games that were hyped at the time though seem meaningless now, and has the likely MVP in James Harden.
But how this Houston season will be remembered hinges largely on the outcome of this series.
The three Warriors-Rockets games were about as anticipated as any in the regular season: Golden State lost two of the three, and the final combined score of those matchups was Warriors 353, Rockets 352.
“That was so long ago,” Warriors forward Kevin Durant said. “I think both teams are different and playing better. So you know, I try not to look at those games but we kind of know, they know what we do and they know what we do.”
It’s the second time in four years that Houston and Golden State have met in the West finals; the Warriors ousted the Rockets in five games in 2015 on their way to the NBA title.
CASEY CAN: The Toronto Raptors’ Dwane Casey was the NBA’s best coach this season, according to his fellow NBA coaches.
Casey was announced Wednesday as the coach of the year by the National Basketball Coaches Association. The award is voted on only by the league’s head coaches.
A media panel voted separately for the NBA’s Coach of the Year award, which will be announced June 25.
Casey won after a season in which Toronto went a franchisebest 59-23 and finished with the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, before getting swept by Cleveland in the second round of the playoffs.