Derrick White’s late-game heroics in South Beach had Celtics fans in Boston celebrating like they won the championship.
A video recorded by WHDH Boston captured one fan hanging from a street pole near the green Causeway St. sign, pumping his left arm in the air and encouraging the group beneath him to keep shouting after White hit a game-winning, season-saving tip-in as time expired Saturday night, giving Boston a 104-103 victory over the Heat Saturday night to force a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference finals.
And when the series shifts back to TD Garden on Monday, Boston will have the chance to become the first team in history to erase a 3-0 deficit in the NBA playoffs and clinch a series.
“Celtics in seven,” one fan told WCVB-TV from outside TD Garden. “If it was gonna take a comeback like this, it’s gotta be Boston.”
After a 128-102 Game 3 loss, it wasn’t a guarantee that the city would even get a Game 5.
But the Celtics’ comeback started with a 116-99 victory in Game 4, using a third quarter where they outscored the Heat by 15 to take control.
Then, Boston secured a 13-point win at TD Garden in Game 5.
And Saturday night, with three seconds left and trailing by one in Game 6, White followed up Marcus Smart’s missed 3-pointer and tipped in the game-winning basket with less than a second remaining — prompting confusion inside the Kaseya Center as to whether the sequence occurred before the final buzzer sounded.
But once the basket was counted, fans and players associated with the Celtics started celebrating, and that was the same in Boston.
“3-0 deficit? That doesn’t matter to us,” one Celtics fan told WCVB-TV. “We’re going back to the Garden.”
The Celtics and Heat will meet for Game 7 on Monday at 8:30 p.m.
“I’ve never been so excited to go back to Boston in my life,” Celtics star Jayson Tatum told reporters after their win. “And I cannot wait to see all the fans on Monday because it’s gonna be fun.”