Boston Celtics stay poised after foundering in 3rd quarter again, lock down Golden State Warriors to win Game 3 of NBA Finals
BOSTON — Once again, the Boston Celtics found themselves being pummeled by the Golden State Warriors in a third quarter.
And as Stephen Curry's 3-pointer fell through the basket with 3 minutes, 45 seconds to go in the third quarter of Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night, capping a 10-0 Golden State run and making it 83-82 Warriors, there was a collective groan from the sold-out crowd inside TD Garden:
Here we go, again.
Only, the Celtics — for the second time in this series — found a way to respond to a Warriors punch to the jaw in the third quarter with their own haymaker in the fourth, limiting Golden State to just 11 fourth-quarter points as Boston went on to win 116-100, lifting the C's to a 2-1 series lead.
«I felt like our team really stayed poised in those moments,» Celtics center Al Horford said. «As you know, earlier in the year, that could have gone south quickly.
»But we stayed right with it and just locked in and didn't panic and just continued to play."
As Horford alluded to, Boston hasn't been a team capable of doing that all season long. But since the Celtics flipped their season around for good in late January, they've proved to be incredibly resilient. Wednesday's Game 3 victory saw Boston improve to 7-0 in these playoffs in games following a loss, and the Celtics have yet to lose back-to-back games in this postseason.
Since Jan. 23, the Celtics have gone 13-1 in games following a loss.
«I think that's kind of when we turned our season around, when we turned that corner,» Jayson Tatum said. «Earlier in the season, we would have given up leads and lost games like that, whereas now — things happen, right. They're a great team. They've got great players. They're going to make shots. They're going to