Heat are too hot to handle
Comeback comes up short after C’s get burned early
Marcus Smart had turned his ankle a quarter earlier, left with assistance for the locker room and returned to a wild ovation. But when Jayson Tatum went down with 5:18 left, holding the back of his left knee, the Garden went deathly quiet.
Until he returned two minutes later.
In a pair of returns reminiscent of Paul Pierce’s much-debated moment of wheelchair drama from the 2008 Finals, both players shook off their injuries and came back to hit 3-pointers the next time they touched the ball. But sometimes these returns simply don’t have the desired difference.
After being hit hard early, and going into chase mode for the rest of the night, not even these theatrical returns could pull the Celtics out of their initial misstep, a 39-18 first quarter hole, on the way to a 109-103 Game 3 loss to Miami. The Heat now hold a 2-1 Eastern Conference Finals lead.
Intense Miami pressure forced 24 Celtics turnovers for 33 Heat points, and the Celtics never recovered from those mistakes. Tatum finished with his worst game of the series with 10 points on 3-for-14 shooting, including 1-for-7 from downtown.
Thus wasted was Jaylen Brown’s greatest moment of the playoffs — a 40-point, 14-for-20 performance.
Bam Adebayo, unleashed for the first time this series, had 31 points, 10 rebounds and six assists for Miami.
Tatum had cut the Miami lead to a point (93-92) with his only 3-pointer, only for Max Strus to bury his own bomb down the other end. The Celtics coughed up a shot clock vi- olation, and Adebayo buried a 20-footer over Al Hor- ford for a 98-92 edge.
P.J. Tucker and Grant Williams swapped free throws, and with 48 seconds left Victor Oladipo hit the second of two free throws. Kyle Lowry, in his first action of the series, stole the ball from Smart and Strus for a layup and a 103-94 Heat lead.
Brown cut the margin to six points with his third 3-pointer of the night, Smart picked up a technical foul after fouling out of the game — Lowry hit from the line for a seven-point lead — and Tucker hit two more for a nine-point edge.
The Celtics ended the third as they started it, trailing by 15 points, with Tatum only taking two shots in the quarter. He had nine points on 3-for12 shooting — 1-for-6 from downtown — and like Tatum, the entire team was starving for open looks.
But they kicked out with an 8-0 run early in the fourth that cut the Miami lead to nine points (8980), on Grant Williams’ first basket of the game, a 3-pointer.
They also won a challenge — Williams had been called for a foul while stripping the ball from Adebayo and immediately called for the coaches to ask for a review — with Al Horford winning the ensuing jump ball. But the Heat scored the next four points on an Adebayo dunk and Tucker’s buzzer-beating 15-footer.
Tatum went down with 5:18 left and had to be helped to the locker room. In the meantime Brown finished off a three-point play and came back with 4:53 left to cut the Miami lead to 93-87.
Lowry lost the ball and with 4:14 left drove again to cut the Heat lead to 9389.
Tatum returned to the game with 3:40 left, and with 2:36 left cut the Miami lead to a point (93-92) from downtown.