It's Celtics vs Cavs
Boston beats Philadelphia, 114-112 in Game 5
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 fourpoint 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.
"When you get here, you're flattered by the thought of the Boston Celtics," coach Brad Stevens said. "You realize if you're going to break records here, you're going to break bad ones. Because none of the good ones are reachable."