Tomorrow night, why not just start the score at 80? Get right to the good stuff, you know?
Throw out that aberrational thing last Thursday and we've had four dazzling, exhausting, and draining exhibitions of NBA greatness in what may have begun as a relatively innocuous 2-7 matchup but has turned into instant history. In 63 years of NBA playoff competition, no teams had ever played three overtime games in one series, of any length. They have now. And we're far from done.
"Well," said Doc Rivers, "we won."
He probably needed to say that out loud in order to reassure himself, half afraid there wouldn't be some officiating adjudication that would bring his Celtics and Vinny Del Negro's Bulls back onto the floor for more basketball.
But no, it really was official. The Celtics really had come from 11 down in the fourth period to get themselves into an OT and Paul Pierce really had hit both the tying shot that created the extra session and three more huge fadeaways in the OT to carry his team to a 106-104 triumph and a 3-2 series lead.
"We had our chances, and that's what makes it tough," sighed Chicago's Joakim Noah. "But we'll be back. We have another chance, so it's a learning experience for all of us. Learning experience is not an excuse because I still feel we can win this series."
The Bulls have no reason to feel otherwise. They did not bring anything close to their A game to this pivotal Game 5, but they took the defending champs into OT in their own building. In their minds, they will play better at home, and as far as Game 7 is concerned, they have already done what the Hawks could not do last year, which is to win a game in Boston.
Things did not exactly look rosy for the champs at the 9:28 mark of the fourth quarter. Ben Gordon had just blocked an Eddie House transition 3-pointer and Brad Miller had just sent Noah in for a layup to cap a 15-2 run and leave the visitors ahead by a 77-66 score. The only Celtic who had scored a point in the previous 5:45 was Glen Davis. The offense was, frankly, in the dumper.
Doc's timeout message? "Slow down. I don't recognize you." Or words to that effect.
Pierce, who had been relatively quiet, got things started by taking it hard to the hoop, and that triggered a Boston surge. Good offense gave birth to good defense and the Celtics began their march back, surviving the controversial exit of Ray Allen via personals with 5:45 left and the Bulls up by 3 at 83-80 (a weird double technical with the 7-foot Miller), and finally tying the game at 91-91 on Pierce's fast-break drive with 1:13 left.
"I thought that stretch was the first time in the entire game that we actually slowed down and played with great patience on offense and trusted each other," Rivers said.
The defense wasn't bad, either.
