By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
Leading by 13 heading into the third frame, the Boston Celtics never relaxed and continued to attack the Miami Heat interior to finally break their usual third quarter curse in the series to clinch Game 3, 117-106.
Jaylen Brown went into a scoring frenzy and relentlessly punished the Heat defense as he scored 26 huge points along with 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals, and a block.
The win comes after a heated session in the Celtics locker room where a lot of shouting was reported along with some items being thrown.
The Heat came close in the second quarter after trimming the lead to just three as Tyler Herro went unconscious from the field including several off-balance treys and tightly contested step-back jumpers.
However, the duo of Brown and Jayson Tatum helped the Celtics close the first half on a high note with three straight steals and six straight points ending the half.
Bam Adebayo took over starting the third quarter but his efforts weren’t enough after Boston ran them over to boost momentum in the crucial stretch.
Marcus Smart also came up big after scoring 20 points with nine coming from the charity stripe as he bullied his way underneath and took advantage of every post-up matchup against Duncan Robinson and Goran Dragic.
