Boston sports fans have seen their fair share of fantastic finishes. Heck, they witnessed one literally two days ago at Heinz Field.
But the Boston Celtics’ wild win over the Pacers in Indiana on Monday night has to be right up there with them.
Sure, Celtics-Pacers was relatively low on the importance scale — Boston’s 112-111 victory did little else but improve the team to 26-7 in the regular season. Consider this, though: Terry Rozier’s steal-and-dunk heroics helped the C’s accomplish something no other NBA team has done this season.
Celtics trailed by 5 with 30 seconds left in the game tonight.
Entering Monday, teams were 0-379 when trailing by 5 or more in the final 30 seconds this season
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) December 19, 2017
According to ESPN’s “Win Probability” metric, Boston had an 8.2 percent chance of winning with 31.3 seconds remaining, when they trailed 107-102 despite leading by as many as 19 points earlier in the game.
Enter Kyrie Irving, whose two huge 3-pointers paved the way for Rozier’s game-winning play. Irving’s first three cut Indiana’s lead to two, and his second deep ball with just 10.2 seconds on the clock turned a four-point Celtics deficit into a one-point game.
KYRIE 😳 https://t.co/mBmink9T9Z
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 19, 2017
What happened next? Take it away, Terry:
TERRY. ROZIER. MY GOODNESS. https://t.co/hFlUlM5fKJ
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 19, 2017
To add to the craziness, Pacers guard Darren Collison came inches away from connecting on a desperation heave at the buzzer. His miss meant the Celtics would enter some very, very rare company.
Teams to trail by 5 or more in the final 30 seconds of the game have a win percentage of .002 in those games over the last 20 seasons https://t.co/UXfOCQClLv
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) December 19, 2017
The win actually came at a great time for the weary C’s, who had dropped three of their last six games amid a grueling stretch in their schedule. We’d imagine making history should give them a little boost entering Wednesday’s clash with the Miami Heat.
