(Picture above from Washington Wizards twitter @WashWizards)

In a do-or-die game, the Wizards did, beating the Celtics by a final score of Wizards 92 – Celtics 91. This was easily the worst offensive performance for each team in this series. It was also the only single digit game this series. This game came down to the very last possession, and I had 5 heart attacks in the last 1:34 of the game. Here is what happened:

ESPN decided to begin the game by sharing a meaningless stat that would have no effect on the outcome of the game: “Home teams are 0-10 facing elimination in 2017 playoffs.” The Wizards went out and made the home teams 1-11. On Monday night, home teams will be 1-12.

The first quarter ended with the Wizards up 22-17. Neither team was shooting well. The Celtics were worse though, shooting 23.5%. The one bright spot for Washington was that they had 10 assists on 10 made shots.

Quarter two was the same story, with the Wizards up by 10, until the last few minutes of the half when the Celtics went on a 12-1 run to close the half and went into halftime with a 42-41 lead. Beal was playing well, scoring 14 points, but Wall was struggling mightily with only 3 points on 1/9 shooting. Avery Bradley picked up where he left off from last game and led the Celtics with 13 points at the intermission.

The second half began and things were looking bad for the Wiz. A few minutes into the third quarter, Wall was 1/12 from the field and the team was 1/15 from three. The Celtics appeared to be ready to pull away. Then John Wall woke up. Wall scored 7 in a row for DC and 13 in the quarter. The Wizards entered the fourth quarter trailing 69-66. Wall had 16 points, Beal had 20, and Avery Bradley had 22 for Boston.

The fourth quarter was the most exciting quarter of basketball during the second round of the entire NBA playoffs. Beal scored two buckets to give the Zards a 70-69 lead. Then the score went back and forth until Isaiah Thomas scored 5 points in a row to put the Celtics up 87-82 with 1:34 left. The game appeared to be over when Wall was called for a charge to give the ball back to Boston. I was about to give up, but then Washington got a defensive stop and Beal knocked down his first triple of the night to put the Wiz within two. Wall tied the game up next possession with two fouls shots. After trading buckets to get to 89 all, Al Horford banked in a midrange shot to go up 91-89. After a timeout, John Wall caught the ball off the inbound and made the biggest shot for the franchise in 40 years: he made a pull up three pointer to put Washington up 92-91. Isaiah Thomas had a chance to win the game on a last second three, but his shot was off the mark and streamers came flying down in the Verizon Center.

Game 7 is coming. Conference Finals on the line. Get ready.

Zards in 7

P.S. Nice try by the Celtics for wearing all black for the “funeral” tonight. It turns out it was their own funeral. Let’s all hope Wall, Beal, and the rest of the team show up in all black Monday night at TD Garden and show the Celtics what a real funeral is.

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