In a win or go home match up on Wednesday night, the Toronto Raptors beat the Boston Celtics 125-122.
The defending champions were pushed to their limit in this one. The Boston Celtics threw everything they had at them buy the Toronto Raptors once again showed why they are defending champions.
To force a game 7, OG Anunoby and Kyle Lowry had to come up clutch for them to outlast the Celtics in double overtime after both teams looked really exhausted.
Anunoby hit a 3 to put the Raptors ahead with a minute left to play and with jux over 11 seconds left, Lowry hit a jumper to push their lead up as the Celtics tried to tie the game.
Kyle Lowry finished with 33 points, Norman Powell had 23 points and Freddy Van Vleet had 21 points.
For the Celtics, Jaylen Brown had 31 points and 16 rebounds whilst Jayson Tatum had 29 points, 14 rebounds and nine assists. Marcus Smart also had 23 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists.
Brown took 18 shots in the first half, the most by a Celtics player in the first 24 minutes of a game since Antoine Walker took 18 on Nov. 29, 2002 also against Toronto.
Speaking to the press after the game, Brown said : "We had a lot of opportunities down the stretch and we didn't take care of the all as good as we needed to,That's fine. We're heading into a Game 7. We feel good about ourselves."
For the Toronto Raptors, the will need to dig deep again like they did today and expect much more from Paskal Siakam who was 0 for 5 from the 3 point line and 5 from 19 from the field.
The Celtics can however look back on this game and know that if Kemba Wlaker had a little more than 5 points then perhaps there would be no game 7. They will need him at his best if the Celtics are to make it to this year’s Eastern Conference finals and face the Miami Heat.
It will also be interesting to watch how their starters react with 4 of them accumulating over 50 minutes of action in the double over time loss. Theis, their only starter not to play over 50 minutes did play 47 minutes. They need will need as much rest as they can get before game 7 which will be played on Friday Night.