Jaylen Brown hailed the Boston Celtics' never-say-die attitude after his last-gasp 3-pointer teed up their overtime win in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. (More Basketball News)
The Indiana Pacers were just 6.1 seconds away from a 117-114 road win in the opening game of the series on Tuesday, only for Brown to sink a 3 over Pascal Siak🧸am from the corner to level things up.
Two Tyrese Haliburton free throws🅷 put the Pacers back in front in ove﷽rtime, but Jayson Tatum scored 10 of his game-high 36 points in the additional period as Boston triumphed 133-128.
Jrue Holiday supꦰported Tatum with 28 points, while🔜 Brown added 26. All three players finished with three steals apiece as Indiana committed 21 turnovers.
Speaking after the dramatic finale, Brown said: "Welcome t♓o the NBA playoffs! You've just got to manage your emotions. Anything can happen.
"It's not over until the final buzzer soꦑunds. It's not over until it’s over. We found a way to win the game at the very end."
Hol♑iday echoed those sentiments, adding: "We've seen crazy stuff happen all the time.&꧑nbsp;
"We don🎃't think we've lost a game until we've actually lost the game. That's part of the reason why we were so resilient towards the end.
"A couple of tཧurnovers, a great shot, a great look by JB, or at the other end if we make a couple other shots that were wide open it♎ could be a completely different game.
"We're just the type of team that's going to🍷 keep on fighting no matter how long and no matter what it takes."
The Celtics host Game 2 on Thursday as they targඣet a first NBA Finals appearance ꦉsince 2021-22, when they were runners-up to the Golden State Warriors.
Asked how Boston will approach Game 2, Tatum said: "Don't relax, it'll be different circumstances. Theಌ first two rounds we won our Game 1 🍒by a wide margin, so maybe human nature played into that.
"𝐆But tonight being a clo☂se game, going into overtime, we certainly felt like we should have won and we could have played better."
