With script flipped, Celtics hope to close out Pacers in Game 4 - ESPN

INDIANAPOLIS — A year ago, the Boston Celtics found themselves in a 3-0 hole in the Eastern Conference finals — only to then win three straight games, and nearly pull off a historic comeback.

So, while the Celtics now find themselves on the precipice of advancing to the NBA Finals for a second time in three years after escaping from Game 3 with a victory over the Indiana Pacers on Saturday night, Boston is aware that its work is far from over heading into Game 4 here Monday night.

«The numbers are literally flipped,» Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said, when asked about what he and the Celtics can take away from last year's experience this year. «But I think that's a situation… when you're in any situation, sometimes you find out why you're in it a day later, a week later, a month later, sometimes a year later.

»So, I think it's more important to just focus on the position we were in last year, what can we learn from that? And I think the position we're in now it's 'OK, that's why we had to go through what we had to go through, was to gain the experience, gain the mindset, gain the pain, all the things that went into that,' and try to use it for this. And that doesn't mean anything other than we have to have the humility and the perspective to understand what we've been through and try to use it to get to where we want to go."

Where Boston wants to go is back to the NBA Finals, the place they have repeatedly fallen short of getting over the past several years, as they've advanced to the Eastern Conference finals in five of the previous seven seasons, but only made it to the NBA Finals in 2022.

This season, though, the Celtics have been the NBA's dominant team from start to finish. Boston won a league-leading 64 games; had a