NBA, victory of the Boston Celtics against the Miami Heat: the last three seconds decide the match

Three seconds. Just enough time to put your hand in your pocket and see if there are car keys. But in basketball, three seconds is a story to tell. And in Miami, the city of Charles Willeford’s thrillers, stories can have a ruthless and bitter ending. In those three seconds, the Boston Celtics first lost a game dominated for 47 minutes and 57 seconds, then saw it go away, which meant eliminated from the title race, to then win it with a desperate conclusion, on the last rebound shot, the ball went crazy on the ring, a fraction of a thousandth from the end.

The Celtics win Game 6 of the East Conference Finals 104-103, tie the series with the Miami Heat, freeze an entire arena, an entire city, an entire community, and become the heavy favorites to conquer the NBA Finals against the Denver Nuggets, champions in the west. No team in the history of the American major basketball has ever succeeded in the playoffs, overturning the initial 0-3 of the best-of-seven games. 150 tried: they all failed. The last game will be played on Monday in Boston, for Memorial Day, the day in which the American Fallen of all wars are celebrated.

This could probably have been the decisive race. It will certainly stay forever. It happens when in a hot game there are two players who believe in it more than anyone else. And they play against each other. Jimmy Butler, star of Miami, believed it, but also Derrick White, excellent player from Boston, believed it. The first put a game back on its feet that had been lost many times during the first three times. The greens, forced to win away from being eliminated, had closed the first quarter ahead by 5 (34-29), the second by +4 (57-53), the third by +7 (79-72). Miami had always lagged behind, crushed by the excessive power of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown (in total they will score 57 points, Tatum 31, Brown 26), on which Butler and Bam Adebayo had rebounded (35 total, of which 24 for Butler).

An elastic and exhausting game, in which the Celtics have always appeared in control, cold and essential in their choices, good at filling the area in defense and closing every gap in the central streets. But this was up to the last three minutes of the last quarter, when Miami went from -9 (91-100) to gnaw all the deficit. Butler made baskets repeatedly, including a three-pointer from the corner. The public began to believe it, Butler brought out the arctic version of himself: he continued to pierce the opponent’s retina, until the final masterpiece, when three seconds from the end he won three free throws, being fouled by Al Horford. The score at that point was 102-100 for Boston. With the clock stopped, Butler went to the line and hit the first free throw. 102-101. Then he made the second. 102-102. The third was missing, that of the possible advantage. He did that too. 103-102. Everyone thought he earned every single dollar of his $37 million salary.

The arena went crazy with joy, the looks of the Boston players appeared terrified. Tatum nervously pushed away a camera during the timeout. Three seconds in which Miami, which entered the playfoffs as eighth, was about to write history, reaching the final from the bottom of the class. Three seconds in which Boston had only one chance to make it, holding on to the one state of mind that hadn’t been part of its near-perfect game: desperation. Last action, after timeout. The ball was served to Marcus Smart, who turned around from the three-point line and sent off a bankruptcy, which immediately appeared off-centre. The ball bounced off the iron and people cheered, a player from Miami, Gabe Vincent, threw up his arms. The match was over. Miami in the final. In history. Boston out. Indeed, no. the ball could go long, where there were the hosts’ hands, or in the central streets where Tatum was running. Instead he slipped to the left side, where the other player of the evening who believed in it, White, came out of nowhere.

It was he, with less than a second to go, who had the lucidity to reach the ball before his opponent, Max Strus, barely touch it with his fingers, before the electronic scoreboard came on, signaling the end. The ball ended up in the retina with the time trial now closed. Behind the basket there was already a red light, but the shot had started a thousandth earlier, and was therefore valid. Basket, victory. With 0.1 seconds left. The audience remained silent and everyone thought the same thing: I will never recover from this night. The series is now 3-3, everything will be decided in Boston. This challenge proved that anything is still possible, but if signals matter for anything, Miami’s players will be drained. They feel they have missed the greatest opportunity ever. In three seconds. For a thousandth too much. One thousandth. After eight months of matches.