MARCUS Smart steadied the ship down the stretch as the Boston Celtics pulled off a 117-106 victory over Miami Heat in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference finals on Saturday night (Sunday in the Philippines).
Smart drained eight free throws in the final minute after seeing their once 100-80 advantage trim to 104-109 on consecutive triples by Heat’s rookie Duncan Robinson.
Smart finished the match with 20 points, six assists and four rebounds as the Celtics avoided going down 0-3 in the best-of-seven series.
Jaylen Brown topscored with 26 points, Jayson Tatum flirted with a near triple-double 25 points, 14 rebounds and eight assists while Kemba Walker finished with 21 markers.
Just like in the first two games of the series, the Celtics started strong in the third game but the Heat answered with rallies to remain within striking distance.
Boston went on to build its largest lead at 100-80 on a completed three-point play by Smart, but Miami came up with its last push to cut the deficit to 104-109 via a layup by Bam Adebayo with 42 seconds left.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles Lakers kicked off their Western Conference Finals series with a 126-114 domination over Denver Nuggets on Friday evening (Saturday in the Philippines).
Anthony Davis tallied double-double 37 points and 10 rebounds, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope added 18 markers while LeBron James and Dwight Howard chipped in 15 and 13 markers respectively for the Lakers.
Down 36-38 after the first 12 minutes, the Lakers did the damage in the second and third quarter behind Davis, Howard and Caldwell-Pope to establish a 103-79 edge heading into the fourth.
BOX SCORES:
BOSTON 117 – Brown 26, Tatum 25, Walker 21, Smart 20, Theis 8, Hayward 6, Williams 5, Kanter 4, Wanamaker 2.
MIAMI 106 – Adebayo 27, Herro 22, Butler 17, Robinson 13, Dragic 11, Crowder 10, Olynyk 3, Jones Jr 3, Iguodala 0, Nunn 0.
QUARTERSCORES:
Q1, 31-22; Q2, 62-50; Q3, 89-74; Q4, 117-106.
The NBA holds all matches of its 2019-2020 playoffs at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex inside Walt Disney World in Bay Lake, Florida, United States./PN
