NBA Playoff Roundup – Heat Take OT Thriller

It was a game of wild swings in the NBA Eastern Conference Finals last night. Both Boston and Miami took turns dominating until Miami held on to win in overtime.

Miami 115 - Boston 111 (OT)

Boston came out on fire and on a mission. The Celtics knew they had to jump out to an early lead and they did just that, getting ahead by as much as 15 in the second quarter. The Celts eventually led by seven going into the half. The Heat stormed back in the third quarter though, outscoring Boston by 13. Ray Allen sent the game to overtime by hitting a 3-pointer with 34 seconds left.

The play that set up Allen's 3 was run to perfection by Boston, but there is no way in hell LeBron James should've left Allen open to help on a drive to the basket. A layup doesn't hurt you when you're up by three, but leaving Ray Allen almost always will hurt you. Miami pulled it out in OT so it's forgotten, but wow that was a bad move.

Rajon Rondo had an unbelievable night. He is the first player in NBA Playoff history to score 44 points, grab 8 rebounds and dish out 10 assists in a post-season game. Rondo hit 16 of 24 shots, unheard of for him since the biggest knock on his game is his shooting. I even said Boston didn't need him shooting 20 times if he was going to only make 8 of them. One way to silence talk like that is to hit 75%.

So Boston gave everything they had, Rondo even played all 53 minutes of the game, and still came up short. How much that will affect them in game three remains to be seen, but they've got some old legs out there. Consider that the Celtics are getting zero bench help right now, and the last thing they need is their stars to be fatigued.

LeBron led Miami with 34 points and 10 rebounds, while Dwyane Wade had 23 and Mario Chalmers chipped in 22.

Game three is Friday night in Boston at 8:30 p.m. eastern.