Gritty Celtics stuns Cavaliers with a Bradley buzzer-beater
CLEVELAND – The Celtics came to the Cavaliers’ home turf humbled and hurting. After getting flattened in the first two games of the Eastern Conference finals at home, they arrived for Game 3 without their injured All-Star point guard, Isaiah Thomas, and the rest of this series appeared to be little more than a formality.
But this team did not win 53 games and secure the No. 1 seed in the conference by accident. They did not know if they would win, but they knew that if they lost, it would not be because they gave up.
And on Sunday night Boston completed its most improbable comeback of this improbable season, surging back from a 21-point third-quarter deficit to take a 111-108 victory on Avery Bradley’s 3-pointer with 0.1 seconds left.
The Celtics pulled within 2-1 in this best-of-seven series and ensured that there will be at least one more game in Boston this season.
Before the game, guard Marcus Smart talked about the importance of going for singles instead of home runs. As it turned out, his best choice for a baseball metaphor would be to go for triples.
Smart, who made just 28 percent of his 3-pointers during the regular season, drained 7 of 10 and had a season-high 27 points. Bradley added 20 points, none bigger than his dagger in the game’s final moment.
Cavaliers star LeBron James, who dominated both games in Boston, was held to 11 points and missed all four of his 3-point attempts.
With 3:04 left in the game, Smart gathered an offensive rebound and fired a pass to Al Horford, who drilled a 3 to give Boston a 103-101 lead.
The Celtics led, 104- 103, when Kyrie Irving missed and Boston gathered the rebound. With 46.3 seconds left, Horford scored inside to make it 106- 103. The Celtics were in need of a stop, but JR Smith’s 3 from the top of the key tied the score at 106 with 36.3 seconds left.
After a t i meout, J onas IT
STARTED out as an exciting competition where 18 of the world’s top grandmasters were vying for two slots for the world chess championship candidates’ tournament.
Unfortunately, the FIDE Chess Grand Prix in Moscow – which ended May 22nd - eventually petered into an event of chess cowards with nobody taking risks to win games. And as the final pawn was pushed, only 22 of the 81 games played in the 9-round, all-GM, 18-player Swiss tourney were decisive, the rest mostly dull draws.
At any rate, Chinese Ding Liren won the Grand Prix with 6 points, half- a- point ahead of Shakhriyar Mamedyarov who finished with 5½. Seven players shared 3rd-9th places with 5 points apiece – Maxime Vachier- Lagrave, Hikaru Nakamura, Anish Giri, Peter Svidler, Alexander Grischuk, Teimour Radjabov and Hou Yifan. Pentala Harikrishna, Boris Gelfand and Evgeny Tomashevsky shared 10th- 12th places with 4 ½ points each. Francisco Vallejo Pons and Jon Ludvig Hammer tied for 13th-14th places with 4 points apiece; Ian Nepomniachtchi, Michael Adams and A.R. Saleh Salem were bunched in 15th- 17th places with 3 ½ points each, and Ernesto Inarkiev finished last with 2½ points.
Sometimes, an all-star cast doesn’t guarantee top fighting chess, and this one’s a sorry example.
Nepomniachtchi,I (2751)-Harikrishna,P
(2750) [A18] Moscow (8.7) 2017