ATLANTA — The Celtics didn’t have to be once more proper right here. All they wanted to do was go for the kill.
Halfway by the fourth quarter of Sport, the C’s had been in full administration. Up 13 with 6:10 remaining. Main by 12 with 5:24 to go. However after asserting themselves for 42-plus minutes, they relaxed. They obtained complacent and passive. They didn’t shut out the Hawks, who led by Trae Younger pulled off a miraculous comeback to energy a Sport 6.
“We performed to not lose as a substitute of simply taking part in to win the sport,” Marcus Sensible admitted Thursday morning at Celtics shootaround. “And that occurs. Sadly it occurred to us and we simply made issues just a little bit tougher for ourselves. We’ve received one other nice alternative to be right here. God has blessed us to get up at present and are available out and attempt to convey it residence.”
Even after blowing the lead, the Celtics found themselves able to outlive inside the final seconds of Sport 5. However two performs proved to make the excellence.
The C’s led 115-114 with 25 seconds to go after they gained a soar ball and Jayson Tatum found Robert Williams for an alley-oop. However moments later, Sensible took an infinite risk. He knocked the ball unfastened from Younger, and crashed to the bottom in an effort to grab the unfastened ball. However he glided by Younger’s once more and was known as for the foul, lots to Sensible’s disagreement.
“It’s calculated. I tipped the ball, unfastened ball, we dove to the ground,” Sensible talked about. “I obtained known as for a foul. I indicate, I don’t know what else to do about that. I dive on the bottom every single time, every recreation, it doesn’t matter. And that’s a unfastened ball, it’s not like he had the ball in his fingers. It was a unfastened ball and we every went after it. I don’t see how I obtained known as for the foul, however it certainly happens.
“You simply transfer on. It’s not going to vary the way in which that I play. I assure if it falls on the bottom once more, I’m going to dive my ass on the ground once more. It’s what it’s.”
The Celtics had one different probability. They retook the lead after Derrick White was fouled with 6.5 seconds left and made every free throws to make it 117-116. Then the Hawks known as timeout to advance the ball to midcourt, and Younger obtained the inbounds inside the backcourt. With Jaylen Brown defending him, Sensible creeped as a lot as present help for a doable double workforce. However he didn’t get there sooner than Younger pulled up from 30 toes and drilled the game-winning 3-pointer.
The Hawks had been solely trailing by one, in order that they didn’t need a 3-pointer, nonetheless Sensible talked about Younger was most certainly going to take that shot anyway.
“We’ve been doing actually good all sequence in taking that shot away,” Sensible talked about. “So, even with me coming, even when I didn’t come, he’s in all probability going to take that shot. Even when I got here tougher, he was nonetheless going to take that shot. I wasn’t the defender on him, so the first defender at occasions has to know that we’ve got to be pressed up and proceed to make it powerful. He loves that shot and he walked proper into it and he was comfy. We will’t let him be comfy.”