Home

Celtics top Heat to cut NBA series deficit

AAP
Boston Celtics' Jaylen Brown was not to be denied at the rim by Miami Heat's Bam Adebayo.
Camera IconBoston Celtics' Jaylen Brown was not to be denied at the rim by Miami Heat's Bam Adebayo.

Getting big leads has been relatively easy for the Boston Celtics in these NBA eastern conference finals and on Saturday they found a way to finish the job.

Jaylen Brown scored 26 points and Jayson Tatum added 25 as Boston eased to a 117-106 win over the Miami Heat.

And just like that the east title series got a whole lot closer with the Heat leading 2-1 in the best-of-seven showdown.

"There's some great guys in that locker room," Brown said.

Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE

Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.

READ NOW

"A lot of emotion, a lot of passion, but we're a family and we're here for each other at the end of the day.

"We exemplified that when we came out together ... we kept our will high and we persevered to win this game."

The Game AFL 2024

Four of Boston's starters scored 20 points or more with Kemba Walker and fellow guard netting 21 and 20 respectively.

The Celtics were aided by the return from injury of Gordon Hayward after a month out - coming off the bench he had six points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals in 31 minutes.

"I just tried to impact our team in winning ways, whatever I could do," Hayward said.

But it was Boston's dominance inside the paint, outscoring Miami 60-36, that proved decisive as they led by as many as 20 and never trailed.

"We have great competitive spirit and we showed it tonight," Walker said.

Bam Adebayo had 27 points and 16 rebounds for the Heat, who lost for just the second time in 12 games in these playoffs.

The Heat rallied from 14 points down to win game one in overtime and from 17 points down to win game two.

But they never caught up in game three - though they did close to within five late in the final quarter.

"We didn't play hard enough," Heat All-Star Jimmy Butler said.

"I think we didn't do anything that we said that we were going to do."

Partly to allow the western conference finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets to catch up, the Heat and Celtics won't play game four until Wednesday.

Game two of Lakers-Nuggets is on Sunday, followed by game three on Tuesday.

From there, both series will have an every-other-day format.

Get the latest news from thewest.com.au in your inbox.

Sign up for our emails