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CLEVELAND: Caron Butler scored the game-winner with 3.2 seconds to
play on Wednesday as the Washington Wizards beat Cleveland 88-87 to
stay alive in the National Basketball Association playoffs.
With the nail-biting victory, the Wizards fended
off elimination, narrowing the gap in the best-of-7 Eastern
Conference first-round series to 3-2.
Game 6 will be in Washington on Friday.
In Boston, the top-seeded Celtics earned a key
110-85 victory over the upstart Atlanta Hawks to take a 3-2 lead in
a series that moves back to Atlanta on Friday.
Paul Pierce led the Celtics with 22 points,
seven rebounds and six assists.
Cavaliers star LeBron James had a chance to
respond to Butler’s driving layup and seal the series, but his own
drive into a crowded lane ended with his shot rolling off the rim as
time expired.
“I was able to get to the rim, but I just
missed the layup,” he said.
Asked if he thought he was fouled, however,
James said “Yes.”
No foul was called, but Butler put his own
celebration on hold to be sure.
“When I saw the ball that [James] shot rolling
on the rim, I thought, ‘This is our season right here,’”
Butler said. “Then everyone started jumping around and
celebrating, but I didn’t celebrate yet . . . I thought they might
have blown a whistle and wanted to review it, but once I saw
everyone going to the locker room, I started celebrating.”
Butler scored 28 points for the Wizards, who
claimed their first victory in Cleveland since 2006.
“Caron is strong enough and skilled enough to
beat good defense and he’s smart enough and veteran enough to know
when to make a play,” Washington coach Eddie Jordan said.
Said James: “He made a tough shot. He played a
phenomenal game tonight. He put them on his back.”
The Wizards won despite the absence of Gilbert
Arenas, who will miss the rest of the playoffs resting his
surgically repaired left knee. He had missed 69 games during the
regular season.
“Gilbert’s a great player, he’s our
closer, he’s a franchise guy,” Butler said. “But during the
course of the season, we learned to play without him.”
The Cavaliers, who led by five points with less
than two minutes to play, couldn’t close out the game to clinch
the series.
James finished with 34 points—13 of them in
the fourth period—10 rebounds and seven assists, but the team shot
just 36 percent from the field.
“We put the ball in our best player’s hands
and we told him to go make a play, like he has for us many times
before,” Cleveland coach Mike Brown said of his team’s final
possession.
In Boston, Pierce shrugged off controversy to
lead the Celtics, who also had 20 points from Kevin Garnett and 19
from Ray Allen.
Pierce had struggled in consecutive defeats in
Atlanta, where the Celtics gave up a combined 199 points in two
games.
In addition to making just three of 14 shots
from inside 3-point range, Pierce provoked Hawks fans with a gesture
considered by some to be a street gang symbol during Game 3.
Pierce was fined $25,000 and released a pre-game
statement Wednesday after a Boston clergyman called him out in a
newspaper article for promoting gang life.
Pierce then scored 10 points with four rebounds
and three assists in the first quarter alone.
Boston took a 58-43 lead into the second half,
but a cold-shooting spell awake the Hawks close to 60-54.
The Celtics responded with a 21-10 run and led
81-64 heading into the fourth period.
Joe Johnson scored 21 points and Josh Smith
added 18 for the Hawks, who head home for Game 6 on Friday well
aware that the first five games of the series have been won by the
home team.
If necessary, Game 7 would be held in Boston on
Sunday, thanks to Boston’s league-leading 66-16 regular-season
record.
-- AFP
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