Heat still lead East finals, but Celtics roaring back with eye on history

MIAMI (AP) —Maybe Kevin Garnett was right. Maybe,as he screamed incelebrationof Boston’s 2008 NBA championship, anythingtruly is possible.

Even theimpossible.

The Celticsare halfway to history, and that alone has gotten them entry into avery small club. Of the first 150 teams that trailed abest-of-seven series 3-0 in NBA history, just 14 — 9.3% — found away to extend the matchup to Game 6. None of them have won theseries, and most are usually eliminated by now.

Not theCeltics. They have cut the deficit in the Eastern Conference finalsagainst the Miami Heat to 3-2, simultaneously trailing the seriesyet seeming to have all the momentum going into Game 6 in Miami onSaturday night.

“Obviously,we didn’t imagine being in this position, being down 3-0, but whenadversity hits, you get to see like what a team is really made of,”Celtics forward Jaylen Brown said. “I mean, it couldn’t get noworse than being down 3-0, but we didn’t look around, we didn’t goin separate directions. We stayed together. We doubled down on whatwe’re good at on defense, and now I think it’s a series.”

Only threeteams have gone from down 3-0 to tied 3-3; the Celtics could be thefourth with a win on Saturday. No NBA team has ever fully escapedthe 3-0 hole, but a win on Saturday would give Boston a chance tochange that in Game 7 — which would be Monday on its homefloor.

“One of ourassistants put it in great perspective: The seasons are like ninemonths long, and we just had a bad week,” Celtics coach JoeMazzulla said. “Sometimes you have a bad week at work. We obviouslydidn’t pick the best time to have a bad week, but we did, and we’resticking together and fighting like hell to keep it alive.”

Meanwhile,the Denver Nuggets are waiting for an opponent. If Boston wins theseries, the Nuggets will visit the Celtics for Game 1 of the NBAFinals. If Miami wins the East, the Heat are headed to Denver forGame 1. Either way, the title series starts June 1, somewhere.

“We have toshore up who we are and address the areas that we have not beenmaybe good enough or areas that we can clean up,” Nuggets coachMichael Malone said Friday, after the team’s first real practicesince sweeping the Los Angeles Lakers for the Western Conferencetitle. “But it’s really hard to keep your rhythm when you’re notplaying NBA games.”

The Heat hada nine-point lead in the third quarter of Game 4, in position toperhaps win in a sweep. The lead was gone 2-1/2 minutes later andthe Celtics haven’t trailed since.An18-0 run in Game 4put Boston on top of that game forgood, a 12-0 run by the Celtics later in that game ended all doubt,andthenthey started Game 5with a 20-5 burst.

Add that allup, and from the start of the third-quarter run in Game 4 to theend of the start-of-game spurt in Game 5, the Celtics outscored theHeat 84-43 in a span of 27 minutes.

“The last twogames are not who we are. It just happened to be that way,” Heatforward Jimmy Butler said. “We stopped playing defense halfwaybecause we didn’t make shots that we want to make. But that’seasily correctable. You just have to come out and play harder fromthe jump. Like I always say, it’s going to be all smiles and we aregoing to keep it very, very, very consistent, knowing that we aregoing to win next game.”

At least theconfidence isn’t ailing. Everything else is.

Heat coachErik Spoelstra flatly shot down the notion that Miami has an excusefor the way it played in Game 5 — “there’s no excuses. Not at all,”he insisted — even though the training room is as crowded as ascrum for a loose ball under a basket right now. The Heat have beenshorthanded in the backcourt for the entirety of the playoffs afterinjuries to shooting guards Tyler Herro and Victor Oladipo, plusthey didn’t have starting guard Gabe Vincent for Game 5 and watchedKyle Lowry play through some sort of hand issue.

Miami’sstarters were outscored 95-44 in Game 5, and since the start ofBoston’s comeback-sparking burst in Game 4 the Heat have beenoutscored 75-33 from 3-point range, allowed the Celtics to shoot54% from the field, 44% from 3-point range while committing 26turnovers to Boston’s 12.

Pick anumber. They’re all bad for the Heat, except the one that mattersmost — 3-2, the series score that means Miami is still only one winfrom capping its own improbable run of being a No. 8 seed thatfound its way into the NBA Finals.

“It’s acompetitive series,” Spoelstra said. “You always expect things tobe challenging in the conference finals. One game doesn’t lead tothe next game. … We beat them by whatever in Game 3. It justdoesn’t matter. It’s about collectively preparing and puttingtogether a great game. We’ll play much better on Saturday. That’sall we just have to focus on right now.”