Miami Heat THRASH Boston Celtics, and face Denver Nuggets in NBA Finals

History was on the side of the Miami Heat. After 150 tries, no team in NBA history had ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series.

On Monday night, Miami flipped that streak to 151-0, as they defeated the Boston Celtics 103-84 to advance to the NBA Finals. There they meet the Denver Nuggets. The Heat became the second-ever eight-seed in the East to reach the title sequence.

Prior to this season, only three teams had ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to force Game 7 – with the last in the 2003 Western Conference First Round. That already meant both teams made history. Miami made sure that history was in their favor.

The 2023 Celtics now join the 1951 New York Knicks, 1994 Denver Nuggets, and 2003 Portland Trail Blazers as teams that came back from that deficit to force a Game 7, but lost.

Thanks to a stellar 28-point performance from Jimmy Butler and a 26-point night from Caleb Martin, Miami was able to silence the home crowd at TD Garden – which may well be cursed now, as the Celtics won the last three have lost consecutive series. games in the NBA Finals and Conference Finals it has hosted.

Boston shot themselves out of the game, going 32-82 from the floor and a staggering 9-42 from 3-point range.

The Celtics started the night in terror when star Jayson Tatum rolled his ankle on the very first play of the game after landing on the foot of Miami’s Gabe Vincent.

Tatum worked through before finally sitting out for the rest of the first quarter.

In that time, the Celtics put up a terrible stat line to start the game – 0-for-9 from behind the 3-point line. It wouldn’t be until 9:53 of the second quarter before Boston hit a shot from deep.

Miami really dominated in the second half of the first quarter, finishing that period with a 22-15 lead.

It only got bigger for Miami – who extended their lead to a whopping 17 in the second quarter before Boston finally started to get back under them.

As the second quarter drew to a close, the C’s began to narrow their deficit – bringing the game back to within eight points at 1:49 by a score of 47-39.

But the Celtics couldn’t stop Miami from scoring points – with the Heat 11 up 52-41 at the end of the first half.

Going out of halftime, a controversial travel talk against Jayson Tatum caused a stir among the Celtics. That led them to a crucial 8-0 run that cut Miami’s lead to 59-51 with 8:29 left.

The Heat responded with four more points, but the Celtics responded quickly. They went back and forth until a Derrick White bucket to make it 66-58 led to a timeout from Miami coach Erik Spoelstra.

For a period in that third quarter, the teams continued to miss shots — five in a row combined. It was Miami that broke the deadlock.

By the end of the quarter, Boston trailed by 10 points-scoring, but at an inconsistent pace and couldn’t stop Miami from tallying up small but painful buckets like cat scratches.

With the Garden rocking, the Boston Celtics should have been ready for the fourth quarter to take on the Heat and finally overcome that 3-0 curse.

Boston must not have gotten that memo, calling a timeout at 10:50 after flipping the ball twice and giving up seven points to fall 83-66.

The Celtics, trailing hugely due to their inaccurate three-point shots, decided they should continue with three-pointers. They remained missing. Miami’s lead grew to 21 when Boston called a timeout with 6:08 left.

At that point it was over. The Celtics kept missing shots, both teams brought out their bench players, and the Boston faithful walked out into the night, with the air as tepid as their basketball team.