Three takeaways from Celtics making it a series with blowout Game 5 win over Heat

We have ourselves a series.

After dropping the first three games of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Celtics that looked like the best team in the NBA for stretches in the regular season have shown up the last two games. On Thursday night they took a double-digit lead early and turned Game 5 into a “sit your stars in the fourth” win for Boston 110-97 (and it wasn’t that close).

Miami still leads the series 3-2 and should be the favorite to advance, but doubt is creeping into Heat Nation. The Heat need to close this out Saturday in Game 6. Otherwise all bets are off.

Here are three takeaways from Game 5.

Those of us who picked the Celtics to win this series did so because they had two elite stars, great depth, the third-best defense in the NBA this season and plenty of shooting. They were the better team, both on paper and during the regular season.

What we expected was the team that didn’t show up until the second half of Game 4. There is something about these Celtics — for the past few years, through three different coaches — where they need to make it hard on themselves, put their backs against the wall, before they played at their peak.

“I didn’t know the answer,” Jayson Tatum said postgame about why that is. “For some odd reason, even last year, we seemed to always make it tough on ourselves. But I do know you can see the true character of a person, of a team, when things aren’t going well.”

That elite team showed up again from the opening tip of Game 5, which is why Boston had a double-digit lead midway through the first that lasted until the final minutes of garbage time.

Everything went right for the Celtics in the first half. Jaylen Brown found his shot and had 15 points (3-of-5 from 3). As a team the Celtics