Pacers make foul ending for Celtics
free throws and intentionally missed the third. After a timeout with 0.3 seconds remaining, Derrick White’s sideline inbounds pass was tipped by Luke Kornet before rolling off the rim.
About 15 minutes after Mazzulla voiced his frustration, a smiling and relieved Hield stood in Indiana’s locker room and did not dispute his recollection.
“I mean, I told Joe what I told Joe,” he said. “But they have three refs out there and they had the replay center, and that’s what replay is for, I guess. I was thinking I might have hit [Brown] a little bit, but they have three refs out there and they have cameras and they slow down the angles of it. I felt like it was not excessive contact. I know I touched the ball, I maybe nicked Brown in the head a little bit. I’m not too sure.”
About 15 minutes after that, Brown’s frustration was palpable as he delivered a rare, searing rebuke of the sequence. He insisted that he had been hit in the head. He said that when he asked referee crew chief James Williams if the review had shown that, Williams told him it had not.
“And that’s what [ticked] me off, because I know I got hit in the head,” Brown said. “And you see on the replay, it’s pretty obvious I got hit in the head. Then you look me in my eye and tell me that I didn’t. I think that needs to be investigated. Cost my team a game and of course I’m [ticked] about it.”
Of course, no matter what the officials’ report says Tuesday, no matter how much the Celtics complain, the result will not change. And during the moments their ire subsided after the game, they acknowledged that the game never even should have reached that point.
With 3:10 left in the second quarter, Haliburton, Indiana’s rising MVP candidate, drove along the left lane while being guarded by White and slipped awkwardly as he neared the basket, causing his legs to split wide.
He immediately grabbed at his left hamstring and stayed on the ground for about a minute before rising, but it became clear that he could not continue. He was eventually carried off the court by two teammates, and as they crossed midcourt, another put a towel over his head so he could let out his emotions more privately.
The Pacers quickly fell behind by 11 points, and faced the same deficit a few minutes into the third quarter. But then, behind the pestering, relentless play of backup point guard T.J. McConnell, the Pacers, playing freely and confidently, roared back with a 44-point third quarter to take a 103-101 lead to the fourth.
That, Mazzulla admitted after moving on from the frustrating, fateful ending, was why Boston lost. Boston’s coaches warned the Celtics several times this weekend about the dangers McConnell can present. On Monday, nothing helped.
“I felt like after Haliburton went out, they got almost an emotional lift from that and played with a bit more inspiration,” Mazzulla said, “and you could just kind of feel it.”
Two nights after going 8 of 42 from the 3-point line — with plenty of wide-open misses — in their loss to the Celtics here, the Pacers suddenly began to spray longrange shots from all angles, including several key, contested darts in the fourth quarter. They made 19 of 40 in the game and forced 15 Celtics turnovers.
Brown had five of those miscues, but otherwise played an efficient and at times dominant game with Tatum out. He made 17 of 26 shots for his 40 points, and if that late call had gone his way, he probably would have ended the night as the hero. Instead, it turned into a frustrating loss. “I was a bit overly aggressive,” Porzingis said. “Tried to go for the steal a little bit and then I was right there. I turned around right away and just went up, and looking back at the replay, I probably should have just kept my arm there. But I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to foul him,’ at the same time kind of pulling back. That way, it almost looks like more of a foul.”