With under a minute left in a crucial game 5 Paul Pierce was handling the ball and draining the shot clock, staring down Lebron as he dribbled ever so slowly to the 3 point line, he finally rose up and the ball drifted in the air until it dropped through the net and American Airlines Arena was stunned silent. That very shot was essentially the game winner and gave the celtics a 3-2 series lead. Paul Pierce wanted to hit that over James and noting was going to deter him from doing so. Pierce was having a horrendous shooting night, making only 5 of his 18 shots, but he nailed the most important of this shots in the Celtics time of need.
The Celtics did not get their first lead of the game until there was 48 seconds left in the 3rd quarter when Mickael Pietrus made an open jumper. This Celtics squad battled back from 13 down. They showed that there is no replacement for chemistry late in games, something that this Heat team clearly doesn't have.
Eric Spoelstra is not ready to be the coach of a team that is as talented as the Heat are. His lineup and rotation decisions were very poor. He elected to only play Chris Bosh 14 minutes even though he had 9 points and 7 rebounds. It was reported that Bosh had a minute cap at about 25 minutes. Spoelstra should have ran Bosh closer to that 25 mark considering how good he was playing. Bosh is the only good Heat player that has any length. Haslem stands a 6 foot 9 inches and for a good portion of the game he was guarding the 7 foot Kevin Garnett. Spoelstra flat out neglected that fact that he needed someone longer to guard Garnett and that is the main reason Garnett had 26 points and 11 boards. He had a person capable of defending him, but Bosh was regulated to bench duty.
Doc Rivers has clearly out coached his counterpart in this series and it shows because a team of Miami's talent should not be on the verge of defeat to the old, aging Celtics team. Don't get me wrong the Celtics have some talent, but most of it is old and Miami should be running them out of the gym with their superior athleticism. Doc Rives wanted the Celtics to control the flow of the game and keep it a half court game. This strategy has worked because the Celtics have flat out dominated the last 4 games.The Celtics should have won the series already, but I dot want to get into what happened in game 2.
Rondo was amazing as always dropping 13 dimes on a terrible shooting night. Ray Allen still needs to find his touch, but he did hit the last 4 free throw of the game which sealed the deal. LeBron continued his domination of the stat sheet tallying 30 points and 13 boards and Wade has 20 second half points to get out of whatever slump he is in although, it is most likely too late. No player on the Heat shot over 50% from the field and it lead to a 39% shooting night for the team. The Celtics didn't shoot much better from the floor, 40%, but KG's 11 for 20 night helped out.
These Celtics were counted out by most people after game 2 and some still didn't want to believe it was a series again after they came back and tied the series up 2-2. Some people said a series doesn't start until the somebody wins a game on the opposing teams court, well that just happened and with the series going back to Boston I find it hard to believe that they won't close this out on their home court. The Celtics should take game 6 at home and quite frankly I would like to see this team win a championship this year because this could be their last year to compete with this lineup.
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