NBA Playoffs Blog – Page 4 – NBA Blog

Celtics win Game 5 at home, extend series with Heat

Via Boston.com:

The Celtics have been staring at improbable odds for close to a week now.

But their messaging hasn’t wavered since falling into an 0-3 hole against the Miami Heat.

“Don’t let us win one,” was the mantra echoed by both Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown on Tuesday — just hours before Boston kept its season alive with a Game 4 victory down at Kaseya Center.

And minutes after the Celtics became just the 13th team to force a Game 6 after three straight losses, Brown stuck to a familiar and focused script.

“They let us get two, so don’t let us get another one,” Brown said on TNT’s broadcast following Boston’s Game 5 win in the Eastern Conference Finals on Thursday.

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Jimmy Butler shares preparation plan for Heat at Celtics Game 5

Via Boston.com:

Now, as the series heads back to Boston for Game 5, Heat guard Jimmy Butler says Miami has to play like its backs are against the wall.

A Celtics win on Thursday night would give Boston a two-game winning streak heading into Game 6. If a Game 7 is needed, it will be in Boston.

So, how does Butler plan to stay loose ahead of Thursday’s game?

“Just stay consistent,” Butler said. “Do the same things that I do, that we do after every game. We’re going to listen to some music, you know. Going to drink some beers back there. Going to have some wine. I don’t think you can just focus on basketball at times. You have to be able to get away from the game a little bit.”

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History still on side of Heat, up 3-1 on Celtics

Via the South Florida Sun Sentinel:

The Miami Heat still have the math on their side, even after Tuesday night’s 116-99 loss to the Boston Celtics at Kaseya Center that trimmed their lead in the Eastern Conference finals to 3-1.

Of the previous 150 teams that have started a best-of-seven NBA playoff series up 3-0:

— 44 have managed to force a Game 5, as the Celtics have with Thursday night’s 8:30 p.m. matchup at TD Garden.

— 11 have made it to a Game 6, which in this case would be, if needed, 8:30 p.m. Saturday at Kaseya Center.

— 3 have made it to a Game 7

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Nikola Jokic leads Denver Nuggets to their first-ever NBA Finals trip

Via the Denver Post:

Nikola Jokic stood near halfcourt and unleashed a roar that had been years in the making.

Late in the fourth quarter of Monday’s gripping Game 4, after one of Jokic’s sublime dimes found Aaron Gordon for a dunk, Jokic screamed at the history he and the Nuggets were approaching. Not four minutes later, in front of championship banners that Denver had only been allowed to dream about, the Nuggets seized the Western Conference crown over LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, 113-111.

Their victory punched Denver’s first-ever trip to the NBA Finals by virtue of its first-ever playoff sweep in franchise history.

As James drove to the hoop in the final seconds, Jamal Murray got his hands on the ball in an attempt to thwart James. At the same time, Aaron Gordon soared over and blocked the ball. Game over, and Denver’s reserves stormed the court.

“We got four more wins to go,” Murray said.

Jokic, named the Western Conference Finals MVP, finished with a 30-point, 14-rebound, 13-assist triple-double, setting an NBA record with his eighth in the postseason.

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Lakers change starting lineup but lose Game 4 and series to Nuggets

Via the Los Angeles Times:

In the end, Lakers big man Anthony Davis was outdueled by Denver Nuggets big man Nikola Jokic, and that made the difference in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals Monday night.

In the end, changing the lineup and starting forward Rui Hachimura and point guard Dennis Schroder in place of forward Jarred Vanderbilt and point guard D’Angelo Russell didn’t make enough of a difference for the Lakers in a 113-111 loss.

In the end, even though the Lakers showed how much fight they had, it wasn’t enough to prevent them from getting swept in the best-of-seven series and seeing their season end.

Jokic was simply the best player in the series, producing his third triple-double in four games. He had 30 points, 14 rebounds and 13 assists despite committing five fouls and allowed the Nuggets to pull out the win after trailing by 15.

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LeBron James’ 40 points can’t carry Lakers over Nuggets

Via the Los Angeles Times:

LeBron James would yawn, often, when the cameras were, and weren’t, aimed at him. From early in the season, when the Lakers were still trying to tackle to unsolvable problems of last year, until deep into this playoff push, it never was much of a secret.

He was tired.

This was the best argument among plenty of credible ones why Monday evening would be it, the end to Year 20, the conclusion to a season in which he made history and improbably got his team to the conference finals.

The year was so long, so mentally exhausting, so physically demanding, that the Lakers and James wouldn’t be able to fight to extend it any longer.

Yet Monday night, James gave everything, all of the energy that was left in his 38-year-old body. He got his team close. He couldn’t get them any further than that.

Nikola Jokic hit the game’s biggest shot while two chances for James couldn’t get converted pushed Denver to the NBA Finals after a 113-111 win to sweep the Lakers.

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On Duncan Robinson and the Heat in the playoffs

Via the Miami Herald:

Duncan Robinson’s role and minutes have fluctuated throughout the season. He’s been out of the Miami Heat’s rotation at times and he’s also been relied on to play important minutes during stretches.

But no matter what, Robinson has remained ready.

That was on display in the Heat’s win over the Boston Celtics in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals on Friday at TD Garden, when he finished with 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the field and 3-of-6 shooting from three-point range in 21 productive minutes off the bench after playing just seven minutes in Game 1 of the best-of-7 series. Robinson scored eight points while playing 8:27 in Friday’s fourth quarter.

On the Celtics offense in Game 1 loss to Heat

Via Boston.com:

Before they got blitzed by a 46-25 Miami run in the third quarter, the Celtics looked like they were in sync offensively.

Marcus Smart dished out 10 assists in the first half, during which the Celtics scored 40 points in the paint. They were enough of a threat from outside to keep Miami on its toes.
But that all came to a rather abrupt stop in the second half. The Celtics began the third quarter leading by nine and were down 12 at the end of it.

Obviously getting outscored by 21 points in a quarter has much to do with a loss of defensive intensity. But the fact is they weren’t able to keep up the pace offensively, either.

2023 NBA Conference Finals series schedules

Eastern Conference

Boston Celtics (2) vs. Miami Heat (8)

* if necessary

Western Conference

Denver Nuggets (1) vs. L.A. Lakers (7)

* if necessary

Warriors were not a championship team, says coach Steve Kerr

Via the Bay Area News Group:

Steve Kerr surveyed the visitors’ locker room at Crypto.com Arena Friday night and saw tired eyes and disappointed faces looking back at him.

The Warriors’ season was over. It had ended with a 122-101 drubbing at the hands of the Los Angeles Lakers. It had ended in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals, two big steps short of the NBA Finals, where six of their last eight seasons have ended, five times with a championship.

There was sadness in the room, but there had been time to come to grips with the reality. The Warriors, in a microcosm of their season-long struggles on the road, had trailed by double-digits the entire second half. They were down by 20 points with nine minutes to play.

Kerr noted that the Warriors were one of eight teams still playing this week.

“That’s probably where we should be,” a top-eight team in the league, Kerr said. “This is not a championship team.

“When you go 11-30 on the road during the regular season, that’s not what championship teams do,” Kerr said. “It felt like all season we were desperately trying to recapture what we had last year and we did a pretty damn good job of finding something here over the last month.”