For the second time in six games of this Eastern Conference semifinal series, the Boston Celtics failed to deliver a knockout blow to the Toronto Raptors.
But after Toronto’s heart-stopping, 125-122 double-overtime victory over Boston in Game 6 on Wednesday night, Celtics guard Kemba Walker remained confident he and his teammates have what it takes to finally close out the defending champions in Game 7 on Friday night.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Walker asked. “We’re great players. We are really competitive.
“That was a hard-fought game right there. We could have given up. We didn’t. We made plays throughout the whole game, two overtimes.nfl nike jersey cheap
“I’m confident. We have a good group of guys and we love playing basketball with each other and we love making each other better. I know we’ll respond. We’re going to come out and play hard again.”
The Celtics — or the Raptors, for that matter — couldn’t have played harder than they did in this one. Bodies were flying everywhere, and both teams hardly made a single substitution down the stretch. In fact, the Celtics didn’t make a single one in the fourth quarter or in either overtime.
But, in the end, it was Toronto that managed to make just enough plays to survive in this series — the first coming when Walker made an unreal pass to Daniel Theis for a dunk with .5 seconds left in Game 3, only for Raptors forward OG Anunoby to drill a buzzer-beating 3-pointer right after.
The difference between that game and this one, however, is that Walker was virtually nonexistent. After Walker had his way with the Raptors for the vast majority of this series heading into Game 6, Toronto coach Nick Nurse utilized a box-and-one to limit Walker to just three shots — all misses — in the first half.
Walker finished with just five points on 2-for-11 shooting in 52 minutes Wednesday night, as he was unable to make the kinds of plays that he made seem routine both against the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round and then against the Raptors for much of this series.cheap nfl jerseys china nike
“The second half, I just couldn’t really find a rhythm,” Walker said. “I thought I had a few good looks, but it just wasn’t enough to help my teammates out tonight. Just a bad offensive night for me, terrible offensive night for me.”
