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SAN FRANCISCO , Jun 14 (AP) \u2014 The Boston Celtics couldn\u2019t make a 3-pointer to start the game and found themselves in a deep hole. Then they couldn\u2019t miss and turned the game around.<\/p>\n
But when the outside shooting failed them down the stretch, the Celtics had no answer against the Golden State Warriors and now head home on the brink of elimination following a 104-94 loss in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Monday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, it\u2019s really about consistency,\u201d coach Ime Udoka said. \u201cThat\u2019s the thing we\u2019re not having throughout a full game, is consistent efforts, sustained effort, more so offensively than anything. That\u2019s the part where we got to have carryover not only game to game but quarter to quarter, where we saw it happened in the third but not the fourth.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Celtics went on an outside shooting rollercoaster ride never seen before in the NBA Finals, becoming the first team ever to miss its first 12 shots from long range and then the first team to make eight straight from 3, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.<\/p>\n
They then missed seven straight down the stretch and head back home for Game 6 on Thursday night after first back-to-back losses this postseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think definitely we weren\u2019t as sharp as we needed to be during times there,\u201d Al Horford said. \u201cJust tough. Definitely now, our backs are against the wall, and we have to see what we\u2019re made of.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Celtics will look to turn things around and force a decisive seventh game on Sunday back in San Francisco but will need much more consistency from 3.<\/p>\n
The scoreboard mirrored Boston\u2019s outside shooting as the Celtics fell behind 16 points early when they couldn\u2019t make a 3 and then turned things around after Jayson Tatum and Horford made back-to-back 3-pointers midway through the second quarter.<\/p>\n
Marcus Smart added another one and then Boston made its first five 3-pointers in the third quarter \u2014 including three from Tatum \u2014 and led 66-61 after a three-point play from Grant Williams.<\/p>\n
The Celtics then missed their next seven from long range with the key point coming at the close of the third quarter when Jaylen Brown missed a pull-up with 6 seconds left and Boston was slow to get back on defense, leading to a buzzer-beater from 3 by Jordan Poole that gave Golden State the lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we\u2019re at our best, it\u2019s simple ball movement,\u201d Udoka said. \u201cI think the third quarter showed that. The drive and kick was beautiful, was working, getting guys wide-open shots. I don\u2019t know if it was fatigue affects the decision making a little bit there, or just physically don\u2019t have the burst to finish it off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boston\u2019s frustration boiled over early in the fourth quarter starting when Klay Thompson hit a 3-pointer on a play the Celtics wanted a push-off called. Udoka, who got a technical early, got heated with official Tony Brothers during a timeout and it just built from there.<\/p>\n
Smart got called for a technical foul of his own on the next possession and then was called for an offensive foul on the inbound pass and a delay of game warning. Poole made a basket at the other end and Boston\u2019s five-point from the third quarter turned into an 85-74 deficit.<\/p>\n
By the time Tatum broke the late-game cold spell, it was too late for the Celtics, who spent much of the fourth quarter complaining.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot our best moment,\u201d Horford said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019ve been able to fend those things off, especially throughout the playoffs. For whatever reason tonight I feel like it got to us. It\u2019s one of those things that we kind of brought it back. We were able to focus back in, but we can never let that get to us. We can\u2019t let that affect our game, the way that things are being played.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SAN FRANCISCO , Jun 14 (AP) \u2014 The Boston Celtics couldn\u2019t make a 3-pointer to start the game and found themselves in a deep hole. Then they couldn\u2019t miss and turned the game around. But when the outside shooting failed them down the stretch, the Celtics had no answer against the Golden State Warriors and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-193120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}