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💟 Siakam from the corner to level things up.
Two Tyrese Haliburton free throws put the Pacers back in front in overtime, but Jayson Tatum scored 10 of🗹 his game-high 36 points in the additional period as Boston triumphed 133-128.
Jrue Holiday supported Tatum with 28 points, while Brown added 26. All three players finished with✱ three steals apiece as Indiana committed 2🎃1 turnovers.
Speaking after the dramatic finale, Brown said: "Welcome to the NBA playoffs♑! You've just got to manage your emotions. Anything can happen.
"It's not over until the final buzzer sounds. It's not over until it’s over. We found a way to 💫win 🍌the game at the very end."
Holiday echoed those sentimen🍨ts, adding: "We've seen crazy stuff happen all the time.
"W🌳e 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 turnovers, a great shot, a great look by JB, or at the ✨other end if we make a couple other shots that w🍌ere wide open it could be a completely different game.
"We're just the type of team that's g✨oing to keep on fighting no matter how long and no m🐻atter what it takes."
The Celtics host Game 2 on Thursday as they target a first NBA Finals appearance since 2021-22, when they wer🍌e runners-up to the Golden State Warriors.
Asked how ൩Boston will approach Game 2, Tatum said: "Don't relax, it'll be different circumsta🥀nces. The first two rounds we won our Game 1 by a wide margin, so maybe human nature played into that.
"Bꦯut tonight being a close game, going 🐲into overtime, we certainly felt like we should have won and we could have played better."
