Celtics 94 Heat 90

If you told me Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo were going to play poorly for most of this game, I would've said the Heat were going to win by 20. That's what happened and the Celtics still won, and you know why? Because they a TEAM, and that has been the difference in this series so far.

I say Rondo and Pierce had a bad game, but both came up huge at the end of the game. Pierce did it the way you thought he would. He hit key shots down the stretch, one of them being a 3 that pretty much sealed the game at 90-86. Rondo did it in a much more unconvential way (shocking I know). The Celtics' end-of-game run started with, of all things, a magnificent defensive play by Wade, who blocked Bass' dunk attempt with 6:03 left. The ball wound up going to Pietrus, who drilled a 3-pointer. The story is inbetween those two thing happening. When Bass missed the dunk, the crowd went nuts, but Rondo jumped over two defender, and tip the ball while in the air perfectly into Pietrus' hands. I can't explain how big of a play it was, but I truely beleive that play was what changed the game. If Wade's block held I think the Heat would've won, but then Pietrus hit that 3 you could see the Heat and their fans hang their heads.

From a stats standpoint it's still confusing how the Celtics won this game. They shot 33% in the first half. Rondo line was only 7 pts, 13 asts, 6 rebs, not terrible but at this point we expect more and he did that while shooting 3-15 which made it look a lot worse. Yet, this TEAM picked him. KG was once again amazing, Pietrus shot 5-8 for 13 points off the bench, and everyone in the starting lineup scored in double figures (other than Rondo). It was ugly, but Celtics are in the Heats heads.

The Heat are more talented, but they aren't a better team. Just a couple games ago we were talking this will probably be the last series for the "Big 3", now we are saying the same thing just for the other team. If the Heat lose Game 6, I think you could be seeing a different team in South Beach next year.