MIAMI - With low temperatures here reaching down near the freezing mark yesterday, it would have been hard for the Celtics [team stats] to feel much more at home. The place was like Revere Beach with palm trees. Albeit without Kelly’s.
And the Celts could have used a celebratory clam plate after this one.
Dancing fitfully between heaven and a bad road loss, they survived Dwyane Wade’s 44 points and their own 25 turnovers to claim a 112-106 overtime victory against the Miami Heat.
Rajon Rondo [stats] shook off a balky left hamstring to score 25 points, six of them in the extra inning as the Celts pulled away by scoring 11 of the game’s last 14 points.
With 16.4 seconds left and Ray Allen heading to the line to ice it, a large portion of the crowd commenced with a loud chant of “Let’s go Celtics.” All that was missing was a parquet floor.
The OT was rather anticlimactic, for people will be talking for quite some time about the wild end to regulation.
The Celtics had the ball with 5.5 seconds to go in a tie game and were looking for the last shot. But Wade stole the ball from Allen and raced in to jam with six-tenths of a second left.
Doc Rivers had to yell to hustle his dejected troops in for a 20-second timeout, but their mood would change shortly.
“I had to drag them to the timeout,” the coach said. “They thought the game was over. (Assistant coach) Kevin Eastman kept yelling, ‘The game is not over.’ ”
Paul Pierce [stats] inbounded the ball from the left sideline and lofted an alley-oop feed to Rondo, who beat Mario Chalmers and made the reception and layup in one leap to beat the buzzer. It’s a play the Celts have worked on quite a bit.
“It’s worked against us,” Rivers said. “The tough part about the play is the pass. It’s a tough one to guard. We needed it. I mean, what a great win for us.”
Making it even more dramatic is the fact Pierce missed the last five games with a knee infection and Rondo had sat out the last one with a sore left hamstring. They played 43 and 50 minutes, respectively.
“I thought (Rondo) and Paul really gutted it out tonight,” Rivers said.
And they were ready with less than a second left.
“We’ve been working on that play for a long time, actually since last year,” said Rondo, who made 9-of-12 shots from the floor and 7-of-8 from the line. “And as soon as Wade stole the ball, I knew exactly that was the play we were going to run.”
Said Pierce: “We don’t panic. And thank God that little Rondo can jump so high. He just made a spectacular play, man.”
The Celtics [team stats] made a few of them, with all five starters in double figures, but they nearly undid it all with the turnovers and allowing Miami 17 offensive rebounds and 16 second-chance points.
“But we still won the game,” Rivers said. “We found a way.”
The Celts were on the ropes, having been beaten into an 89-78 deficit by a 28-9 run that had them teetering in the fourth quarter. But they suddenly turned their thermometer upside down. They had made just three of their previous 13 shots, turning the ball over eight times in that span. But they proceeded to score on eight straight possessions to take a 96-93 lead.
Wallace fouled out with 1:10 to go as Udonis Haslem got the Heat within one with two free throws. Ray Allen then drilled a trey to make it a four-point game, and Jermaine O’Neal got it to 99-97 with a jumper at 33.5. Pierce milked the clock, but he drew no iron on his move to the hoop with the 24-second clock running out. The Heat got the ball down the floor quickly, and Allen fouled Wade, who tied the game with two free throws at 5.5.
That set the stage for the Wade-Rondo tango that is undoubtedly flooding your TV screen this morning.
“We felt at home because of the cold weather,” joked Pierce. “It didn’t bother us. It probably bothered them a little more than us. We’re used to it.”
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