Jimmy Butler scored 28 points and Caleb Martin had 26 points and 10 rebounds in game seven of the Eastern Conference finals on Tuesday afternoon AEST to help the Miami Heat beat the Celtics 103-84 and turn back Boston’s attempt at an unprecedented comeback.
The Heat recovered after blowing a 3-0 lead in the series and advanced to the NBA Finals for the second time in four seasons. They will face the Western Conference champion Nuggets, with game one in Denver on Friday afternoon.
Bam Adebayo scored 12 points with 10 rebounds for Miami, which is the first No.8 seed to play for a championship since the 1999 New York Knicks. Top-seeded Denver has been waiting since sweeping the Los Angeles Lakers last week.
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Butler was named the Eastern Conference finals Most Valuable Player, an award named after Celtics Hall of Famer Larry Bird.
The Heat's franchise player barely beat Martin for the award, with four out of the nine members on the panel voting for Martin, while five voted for Butler.
Martin's performance continued an incredible rise which began with him going undrafted when he nominated for the 2019 draft.
The 27-year-old began his career with two seasons at the lowly Charlotte Hornets before finding himself waived prior to the 2021-22 season.
Having been bounced out of the league, Martin spent the summer working out at Grammy Award-winning rapper J. Cole's gym, eventually catching the eye of the North Carolina native.
Cole had a connection to Heat assistant coach Caron Butler and phoned Butler telling him the Heat had to sign Martin, and the rest is history.
"There are certain people that when they call you about particular people, the message and the favour is a little louder than others," Butler said of Cole's phone call.
"It was just one of those things where I was like, 'Damn, he actually called me about this kid'," Butler said, "and he's like, 'Yo, seriously, he needs that (opportunity)'."
Game six hero Derrick White scored 18 for Boston, which was hoping to become the first NBA team ever to advance after falling behind 0-3 in a best-of-seven series. Jaylen Brown scored 19 with eight rebounds but went 1-for-9 from three-point range.
Jayson Tatum, who scored a game seven record 51 points against Philadelphia in the conference semis, had 14 points with 11 rebounds after turning his ankle on the first play of the game and limped through 42 minutes.
The Celtics led by five points early before conceding a 14-4 run to end the first quarter and then giving up 16 of the first 22 points in the second. Boston cut the deficit to seven points late in the third, but Miami took a 76-66 lead at the break and scored the first seven points of the fourth quarter to pull away.
The Heat took the first three games – two of them in Boston – and needed just one more win to reach to the NBA Finals. None of the 150 teams that have opened a 3-0 lead in an NBA playoff series has ever failed to advance.
But the Celtics hyped themselves up by watching a documentary on the Boston Red Sox comeback from a 3-0 deficit against the New York Yankees on their way to the 2004 World Series. When the Celtics took the floor for game four in Miami, ex-Yankees Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter were sitting court-side.
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Boston won games four and five by double digits and had a cushy lead in game six before Miami rallied back to take a one-point lead with three seconds left. The Heat appeared to clinch it when Marcus Smart’s desperation three-pointer rimmed out, but White scored on a putback in the final 10th of a second to force a decisive seventh game.
Back at home, the Celtics greeted their fans with a pregame video inter-cutting highlights from the Red Sox comeback with their own. 2004 Red Sox catalyst Kevin Millar recorded a message to hype up the crowd.
But the heavily favoured Celtics couldn't repeat the feat.
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