« I thought it was short, » said the point guard who scored with less than a second in the game to lift Boston from a 3-0 hole to force a Game 7.
MIAMI — Payton Pritchard let out a yelp as he watched Blake Griffin’s phone, seeing the replay for the first time.
« Oh my God, it was so close! » Griffin exclaimed and then rushed across the room to Derrick White’s locker.
« Let me see, » White said, looking closely at the replay of one of the top moments of his career for the first time, trailing the millions across the globe who were already gawking at it.
A few minutes earlier, White etched his name into the NBA’s annals, tipping in teammate Marcus Smart’s miss with 0.1 on the clock for the difference in a 104-103 Boston Celtics’ Game 6 victory over the Miami Heat to improbably even the Eastern Conference finals at 3-3.
It was the split second that might eventually get its own wall in the Hall of Fame. This was a motherlode of history-type moment.
And it denied the Heat a trip to the Finals. For now, of course.
White’s shot opened up the chance for the Celtics to become the first team in NBA history to rally back from an 0-3 deficit to win a series.
It was just the second time in league history a buzzer-beater happened with a team facing elimination at the moment after Michael Jordan’s legendary « The Shot » in 1989 to lift the Chicago Bulls over the Cleveland Cavaliers in their first-round series.
With Boston’s victory Saturday night, the Celtics won their fifth road elimination game in the past two postseasons, not quite the iconic Bill Russell’s 10-0 record in Game 7s, but this is Page 1 Celtics history material here.
« I thought it was short, » White said as he watched the replay again, standing at his locker with teammates gathering around him.
« Thank God we challenged it, » Smart said to him, noting that Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla not using his challenge on Al Horford’s foul on Jimmy Butler made all the difference.
That Horford foul seemed crushing; it led to three free throws and the clock showed 2.1 seconds. Butler made all three of them and it gave the Heat the lead. But referees wouldn’t have been able to add the 0.9 seconds back unless Boston had requested the review under league rules.
