Watch Avery Bradley's Game-Winner Against Cavaliers To Give Celtics Game 3 Victory
By Matthew Geagan, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Celtics haven't had many bounces go their way against the Cleveland Cavaliers. That wasn't the case on Sunday night.
Avery Bradley hit a game-winning three-pointer that bounced up and rolled around the rim before tickling the twine with 0.1 seconds left, giving Boston a thrilling 111-108 victory in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals.
After Isaiah Thomas was ruled out for the rest of the postseason with a hip injury, the Cavaliers were favored by 16 points heading into Sunday's game at Quicken Loans Arena. The game appeared to be heading to another lopsided finish when the Cavs owned a 21-point lead in the second half.
But the Celtics went on a 26-10 run to cut into the lead to close the third quarter, and suddenly, things weren't going to be easy for the Cavaliers. Boston continued to battle and had the lead in the final minute before Kyrie Irving made a nice driving layup to tie things at 108-108 with 10.7 seconds left.
But that's when Brad Stevens drew up his latest masterpiece on the white board. Marcus Smart dribbled out the clock for a few ticks after taking the inbound pass, and delivered a great feed across court to an open Bradley, who had no defender on him thanks to J.R. Smith's decision to go with a cutting Jae Crowder rather than switch on defense. Bradley had an Al Horford screen waiting for him had Smith opted to stay with him.
Bradley got the ball with three seconds on the clock and wasted no time in putting the shot up. After a tense few seconds of the ball bouncing around, it went through the hoop to give Boston the surprising victory.
Listen: Sean Grande & Cedric Maxwell's Call On 98.5 The Sports Hub:
After the win, Bradley praised his head coach for drawing up such a great play.
"It was the play-call by Brad Stevens. He did a great job forcing them to help and not being able to switch," Bradley said of Stevens' play after the game. "Horford set a great screen, Smart made an even better pass, and I knocked down the shot. It was a great play by Brad."
Stevens shook his head vigorously when asked if the play was drawn up with Bradley as the primary shooter, and said he was actually happy the ball decided to bounce around before going in to give Boston the win.
"Thank God it's bouncing off the rim because that's taking time," Stevens said of his reaction to the play. "If it goes in or doesn't go in, they have a timeout left. We wanted to go with six seconds and the hope was they'd have less than one [second]. When it was bouncing around I was actually hoping it went in, obviously, but not completely disappointed it was bouncing around."
Bradley, who finished Game 3 with 20 points, said after Boston's embarrassing loss on Friday night in Game 2 that they'd find out who the Celtics really were based on how they bounced back the rest of the series. He vowed to play as hard as he could on every play, and knew his teammates would do the same.
"We never counted ourselves out. We knew that if we came out and played hard, we would give ourselves a chance," he said after Sunday's win. "You saw that tonight, and we're going to continue to play that way throughout the series."
