CREATED BY SPORTS BETTORS FOR SPORTS BETTORS
LET’S HEAR YOUR STORY
They certainly didn’t make it easy, but the Miami Heat are officially headed to the NBA Finals.
Caleb Martin and the Heat fended off the Boston Celtics on Monday night at TD Garden to take Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals 103-84. Martin dropped 26 points and shot 11-of-16 from the field in what turned out to be a blowout win in Boston. That snapped a three-game win streak for the Celtics, and kept the Heat from landing on the wrong side of NBA history.
The Celtics were just the fourth team in league history to even force a Game 7 after falling into a 0-3 series hole. No team has ever successfully rallied from that deficit and won the series in 151 attempts.
The Heat are headed to their second NBA Finals in four seasons.
Caleb Martin leads Heat storming past Celtics
Though TD Garden was ridiculously loud to start the game, the Heat shut down Boston early. They took a 7-point lead into the second quarter after holding the Celtics to just 15 points in the opening period — which marked their lowest-scoring first quarter all season. The Celtics shot 0-of-10 as a team from behind the arc in the first quarter.
To make matters worse for Boston, Jayson Tatum rolled his left ankle hard on the very first possession of the game. While he stayed in, his ankle was clearly bothering him. He took only a single field-goal attempt in the first 12 minutes.
The Celtics finally made a pair of 3-pointers early in the second quarter, but the Heat rather easily pushed their lead to 17 points just a few minutes into the period. Though the Celtics cut into that a bit, Miami still took an 11-point lead at halftime.
Derrick White single-handedly mounted an 8-0 run for the Celtics in the opening minutes of the third period, which cut the score back to single digits for the first time since the first quarter. He then got the deficit back to just 8 points on a floater just after the five-minute mark of the quarter, which forced Heat coach Erik Spoelstra to call a timeout. Finally, for about the first time all game, the Celtics seemed to have the momentum back on their side.
But it was Martin who hit a huge 3-pointer and then a fadeaway bucket from the short corner just before the end of the third to get the Heat back to a double-digit lead.
Martin opened the fourth quarter with another 3-pointer before two quick buckets from Butler. That 7-0 run suddenly had the Heat up by 17 points once again. And just a few minutes later, after a mini Bam Adebayo run, the Heat had built up a 21-point lead.
The Celtics’ push was over, and TD Garden had a very different vibe than the first few minutes of the game. Miami simply cruised the rest of the way to the 19-point win, which earned the Heat a return trip to the NBA Finals for the first time since they lost to the Lakers in the 2020 bubble.
Jaylen Brown led the Celtics with 19 points and 8 rebounds, though he had a career-high 8 turnovers — which set a Celtics franchise record in a Game 7. White finished with 18 points, and Tatum added 14 points and 11 rebounds. Brown, Tatum and Marcus Smart shot a combined 3-of-19 from the 3-point line.
Butler finished with 28 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists in the win. He was named the Eastern Conference finals MVP after the game, and averaged 24.7 points, 7.6 rebounds and 6.1 assists throughout the series.
Adebayo added 12 points, 10 rebounds and 7 assists for Miami. Martin had 10 rebounds and 3 assists to go with his scoring. The Heat shot 50% from the 3-point line as a team and had just 10 turnovers.
The Heat, after starting the postseason in the play-in tournament, will now take on the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Finals. The Nuggets, behind a dominant postseason showing from Nikola Jokić, swept the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference finals last week to reach their first-ever NBA Finals. The Nuggets will host Miami in Game 1 of that series on Thursday night at Ball Arena.
NBA Finals
Denver Nuggets vs. Miami Heat
Game 1: At Denver, 8:30 p.m. ET Thursday (ABC)
Game 2: At Denver, 8 p.m. ET Sunday (ABC)
Game 3: At Miami, 8:30 p.m. ET June 7 (ABC)
Game 4: At Miami, 8:30 p.m. ET June 9 (ABC)
Game 5: At Denver, 8:30 p.m. ET June 12 (ABC)
Game 6: At Miami, 8:30 p.m. ET June 15 (ABC)
Game 7: At Denver, 8 p.m. ET June 18 (ABC)
Daniel Weinman was crowned winner of the 2023 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event on Monday, taking home a record breaking $12.1 million in winnings. Weinman had to outlast the other 10,043 entrants to take home the prize and get his hands on his share of live poker’s largest ever prize pool – a staggering $93,399,900. As well as taking home the prize money, 35-year-old Weinman also got his hands on the WSOP Main Event bracelet. The huge bracelet contains 500 grams of 10-karat yellow gold, as well as 2,352 various precious gemstones.
Daniel Weinman won the World Series of Poker's main event world championship on Monday in Las Vegas, earning $12.1 million along the way. Playing in the tournament for a 16th year, Weinman was tops in a deep pool of 10,043 players vying for $93.39 million. His victory came after just 164 hands at the final table. "I was honestly on the fence about even coming back and playing this tournament," the 35-year-old Atlanta native told reporters afterward. Weinman's final table featured Jan-Peter Jachtmann, who landed in fourth place and took home $3 million, as well as Toby Lewis, who finished seventh and secured $1.42 million. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the main event's entry pool far outpaced the previous record of 8,773 set in 2006. "I've always kind of felt that poker was kind of going in a dying direction, but to see the numbers at the World Series this year has been incredible," Weinman said. "And to win this main event, it doesn't feel real. I mean, [there's] so much luck in a poker tournament. I thought I played very well." Steven Jones finished second, securing $6.5 million. And Adam Walton settled for third and a $4 million prize.
Your experience on this site will be improved by allowing cookies.
