Result: Miami beat Boston 98-90
What that means: The Heat are on the brink of a huge series win; they’re up 3-1
How it happened: LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh are on the verge of doing something together that neither of them could accomplish on his own.
Miami’s Big Three combined for 83 points as the Heat beat Boston 98-90 in overtime last night to move within one game of the Eastern Conference finals.
James scored 35, Wade had 28 and the threesome also combined for 35 of Miami’s 45 rebounds.
“We’re the guys. We’re the ones who get all the attention. We’re the ones that get all the praise,” Wade said. “This team is going to go as far as us three takes it.”
One game after their worst performance as a threesome, James, Wade and Bosh had one of their best. They scored all 12 of Miami’s points in overtime; Bosh and Wade had five apiece after James’ fallaway jumper on the Heat’s first possession of the extra period gave them the lead for good.
The Heat lead the best-of-seven East semifinals 3-1, with a chance to close out the series in Miami tomorrow.
“Wednesday night will be our greatest challenge that we’ve had with this group so far,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We’ll get their best games on Wednesday. And we have to be better. If we’re real about what we want to do, we have to beat the Boston Celtics at their best.”
Paul Pierce scored 27, Ray Allen had 17 and Kevin Garnett had seven points and 10 rebounds for Boston. Rajon Rondo, who dislocated his left elbow Saturday night in Game 3, played 39 minutes with a padded sleeve covering what appeared to be a brace on his left arm, scoring 10 with five assists.
The Celtics would need to win three in a row — two of them in Miami — to have a chance to defend their Eastern Conference championship.
“These are those moments. I look forward to it,” Allen said. “Everybody on this team, we know what to do. We can’t talk about it; we just have to put our best foot forward. It’s not easy. It just makes it that much more special if we’re able to do it.”
Boston have reached the NBA finals in two of the last three seasons, both times knocking James and the Cavaliers out along the way. The Celtics eliminated the Heat in the first round last year, one round after knocking Cleveland out and sending James on the journey that landed him in Miami.
In all, Wade had lost 11 straight regular-season and playoff games in Boston. James had lost 13 of 15, including the one that ended his Cleveland career.
“I haven’t had much success in this building,” James said. “We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to just come out and do whatever it took.”
Boston took an 84-81 lead with 2:28 left after back-to-back 3-pointers by Delonte West and Allen, but James hit a 3 to tie it and then made a left-handed lay-in with 48 seconds to play to give Miami an 86-84 lead. Pierce drove to the basket to tie it, but James lost control of the ball while he was dribbling down the clock.
Allen went for it and was bumped by James Jones, giving Boston the ball out of bounds with 19.5 seconds left and the game tied at 86. Pierce got the ball, waited out the clock and then took a high-arcing fallaway jumper in the final seconds that rimmed out as time expired.
The Celtics scored just four points in overtime, shooting 1 for 6 and making four of their 18 turnovers. Garnett started things off by throwing the ball away, and then James made a fallaway jumper as the shot clock expired to give Miami an 88-86 lead.
Allen missed, Bosh dunked at the other end, West missed a 3-pointer and then James drew a charging foul on Pierce. After another Boston turnover, Wade made a 2-pointer with his foot on the 3-point arc to give Miami a 92-86 lead with 2 minutes left in overtime.
“We just had poor execution down the stretch,” Pierce said. “It just carried into overtime, it seemed like. We feel like tonight we beat ourselves.”
-additional reporting AP
Result: Oklahoma beat Memphis 133-123
What that means: Thunder tie series with Memphis, 2-2, after a triple-overtime thriller
How it happened: Trading comebacks and clutch shots, the Oklahoma City Thunder and Memphis Grizzlies looked as if they might play all night.
And considering how entertaining Game 4 of their Western Conference playoff series was, it’s doubtful anyone would have complained.
In the end, though, Kevin Durant and the Thunder refused to let another overtime playoff game slip away and now the series is tied 2-2.
Durant scored six of his 35 points in the third overtime, and the Thunder scored the final 10 points to beat the Memphis Grizzlies 133-123 in a thriller that started Monday night and ended early Tuesday morning.
It was the second straight overtime game in the series and the NBA’s first triple-overtime playoff game since Chicago downed Boston 128-127 on April 30, 2009.
Durant summed it up best, calling it a game that will go down as one of the best in NBA history.
“It was fun. It was something I can tell my kids that I played in a great game like this,” Durant said with a smile.
Fans got on their feet late in regulation and stayed standing until the end, though many started trickling to the exits as the clock ticked well past midnight local time.
With the victory, the Thunder regained home-court advantage and tied this Western Conference semi-final at two games apiece by handing the Grizzlies their first loss in Memphis this postseason. Game 5 is on Wednesday night in Oklahoma City. The winner of the series will play the Dallas Mavericks in the conference finals.
“We’ve got to keep fighting, though,” Durant said. “It’s tied up right now. We’re taking it back to our house. So we’ll see how we handle it.”
The Thunder and Grizzlies went to overtime for the third time this season.
The Thunder blew a 16-point lead in losing Game 3 101-93 in overtime. This time, Memphis was up 18, lost that and fell behind 10 in the fourth quarter only to rally.
Memphis’ Mike Conley hit a 3 over a couple defenders to set up the first overtime. Grizzlies rookie Greivis Vasquez hit an off-balance, one-handed 3 setting up the second overtime, and it was Marc Gasol’s scoring to help extend this game five more minutes.
“Both teams kept coming back and fighting and fighting and fighting. It became a matter of just not having enough bullets as the game wore on,” Memphis coach Lionel Hollins said. “Nobody wanted to go home. Nobody wanted to lose.”
Russell Westbrook led the Thunder with 40 points and only three turnovers in more than 51 minutes of play. James Harden added 19, and Daequan Cook had 10. Durant, Westbrook and Harden played the most minutes in a single game in their pro careers. For Memphis, Zach Randolph and Gasol posted career highs in minutes.
The Grizzlies ran out of energy in the third overtime as they hit 1 of 9 from the floor. The Thunder outscored Memphis 14-4 in the final overtime.
Randolph led Memphis with 34 points and 16 rebounds. Gasol had 26 and 21 rebounds. O.J. Mayo had 18 points and Conley 16 before both fouled out. Vasquez had 14.
“We thought it was destined for us to win, but ain’t nothing given to you in the NBA,” Randolph said. “You’ve got to go out and take it.”
Thunder forward Nick Collison called it the craziest game he has played.
“The good thing about our team is we felt like we fought so hard we earned that game, so we didn’t want to give in,” Collison said. “It would have been easy to give in at that time, but we didn’t do it. It’s a huge win for us and says a lot about us.”
The Thunder had their chances to win at the end of regulation and each overtime.
Westbrook’s jumper hit the rim before the buzzer to end the first 48 minutes. Durant, the NBA’s leading scorer, had a 3 fall short of the basket at the end of the first overtime, and Westbrook’s long jumper grazed the front of the rim at the buzzer ending the second overtime.
“We had the game won a few times,” Thunder coach Scott Brooks said. “They made some incredible shots. That wasn’t bad execution. Down the stretch, they made some incredible shots. That’s what NBA players do. They make tough shots, and both teams did that tonight.”
In the third overtime, the Thunder finally took control.
Fatigue caught up with the Grizzlies counting on Randolph and Gasol to score with Conley and Mayo fouled out.
“It was a great, great, great showcase for the fans, but we needed it more than they did,” Grizzlies guard Tony Allen said. “But they showed poise, and they were the aggressor. They wanted it more than we did.”
Oklahoma City, the NBA’s best free-throw shooting team, got back into this one at the line, where much of this game was spent.
The Thunder hit 15 of 17 shots in the second quarter alone and finished 31 of 39 in regulation. Durant, who missed his lone attempt in Game 3, was 16 of 18 at the line himself. The Thunder went 42 of 50 at the line. Memphis hit 37 of 40.
Memphis led by as much as 18 points when Mayo scored with 8:21 left in the second quarter at 37-19. Then the Thunder went small and sent one Memphis player after another to the bench in foul trouble. They hit 15 of 17 in the second quarter to pull within 53-49 at halftime.
Durant completed the comeback by tying it at 61 with 7:30 left on a pull-up jumper that was just his third made field goal, which he celebrated with a fist pump.
Westbrook put Oklahoma City up for the first time in the game with a driving layup with 5:16 left in the third, and that set up the game that no one wanted to end.
