MIAMI — With attrition taking its toll on both sides – any team that makes it this far is festooned with injuries – the night started at a drudging, groggy pace.
All it was going to take was even a merely above-average night from someone to steal this one, and Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, both after slow starts, raised their respective shooting hands.
Tatum and Brown rebounded from slow first halves, combined to score every point in a 14-2 run in the fourth quarter, including three treys from the latter and one the former, to ignite a 93-80 Game 5 win over Miami. The Celtics thus took a 3-2 Eastern Conference Finals lead, with Game 6 set for Friday night in the Garden.
