Brad Stevens

Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens misread a critical email, but the mistake did not hurt his team.

(AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

BOSTON -- Incredibly, Brad Stevens misreading a league memo about late-game fouling did not hurt the Boston Celtics during Friday night's thrilling comeback against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

With 5.9 seconds left in Boston's 104-103 win, Celtics wing Evan Turner finished a layup with a foul to bring his team within two points. Stevens subbed in Marcus Smart with directions to foul Cavaliers center Timofey Mozgov, but passed along some bad information to Smart.

Why? Stevens thought he had read an email from the NBA saying the league had determined obvious piggyback fouls at the free throw line will be called flagrant fouls from now on. The email actually said the league was considering the change.

Brad Stevens is on the competition committee; that's why he received memo about potential change in rule; could happen as soon as tomorrow. — Jeff Zillgitt (@JeffZillgitt) February 7, 2016

"It was a misinterpretation on my part," Stevens said, confirming he misread the email.

Because of Stevens' instructions, Smart thought he did not have the option to jump on Mozgov's back and foul with no time running off the clock (a trend started, as far as I can tell, by J.J. Redick). Before Smart could deliver a more regular foul, he realized he had a chance to rebound Turner's missed free throw. Smart opted not to deliver the foul at all. Instead, he wrestled with Mozgov for the rebound and knocked the ball out of bounds off the Cavaliers. The Celtics gained possession with 3.1 seconds left, allowing Avery Bradley to drill a buzzer-beating corner three for the win.

The weird email debacle wasn't the only break the Celtics caught during the final seconds. While reviewing all calls in the final two minutes of the game, the NBA decided Cavaliers guard J.R. Smith did not actually commit a foul on Turner's drive. The Celtics wing never should have stepped to the free throw line at all.

The luck didn't even end there. The Celtics did not have a timeout to call after Smart's hustle play, but the official review of the out-of-bounds call gave Stevens enough time to draw up the final set.

"I think it's one of those things like it's just kinda the nature of the game and one of the quirks of the game that you can use that time appropriately," the coach said. "We've got other actions that we could have called that may or may not have gotten us a look. But it was beneficial to be able to draw something up, although, again, our first look was to throw it over the ear to Evan (Turner), as Detroit did to us the night before with (Reggie) Jackson. LeBron (James) shut that off when he switched onto him, so we were down to options 2 and 3 right away."

"If I had to do it over again," Stevens continued, "just from the way that it was defended, I would have had Isaiah (Thomas) just curl it and then just came in for Avery, instead of Isaiah even getting it. But Isaiah made a great play. Once he caught it, it looked like he had an opening for a split second, but when he drew two (defenders), he knew that Avery had a chance to be open coming off that second screen. (Jared Sullinger) set a good screen on both."