Can Celtics Be First NBA Team To Go From 0-3 To 4-3?Fun Fact We All Know & Love: The Red Sox Are The Only MLB Team To Do It!

On Sunday, May 21, the Miami Heat trounced the Boston Celtics by 26 points and took a 3-0 lead in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference Finals.

The Celtics will host Game 7 of that series tonight in Boston. No NBA team has ever come back from 0-3 to win a best-of-seven series. Teams are 0-for-151.

2023 Eastern Conference Finals

G1: Heat 123, Celtics 116
G2: Heat 111, Celtics 105
G3: Heat 128, Celtics 102
G4: Celtics 116, Heat 99
G5: Celtics 110, Heat 99
G6: Celtics 104, Heat 103
G7:

Three teams have fought back to play Game 7, but all three -- the visiting team, in each case -- lost the seventh game. The Celtics are the first 0-3 team to force a Game 7 at home.

L L L W W W L

1951 Finals: New York Knicks lost to Rochester Royals
1994 Western Conference Semifinals: Denver Nuggets lost to Utah Jazz
2003 Western Conference First Round: Portland Trail Blazers lost to Dallas Mavericks

Only one major league baseball team has accomplished an 0-3 to 4-3 comeback. In October 2004, the Boston Red Sox lost Games 1, 2, and 3 of the ALCS to the New York Yankees, before winning Games 4, 5, 6 and 7. The Red Sox went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, winning their first championship in 86 years. It's a hell of a story. Since then, the Red Sox have won three additional World Series titles.

Tonight's Game 7 was made possible by Derrick White's miraculous tip-in on Saturday night in Miami. As seen below, the basketball left his fingers with fewer than one-tenth of one second remaining on the clock, and the Celtics down by one point.

ESPN:

It was just the second time in league history a buzzer-beater happened with a team facing elimination at the moment. The other was Michael Jordan's legendary "The Shot" in 1989 to lift the Chicago Bulls over the Cleveland Cavaliers in their first-round series.

With Boston's victory Saturday night, the Celtics won their fifth road elimination game in the past two postseasons, not quite the iconic Bill Russell's 10-0 record in Game 7s, but this is Page 1 Celtics history material here. . . .

White . . . inbounded the ball to Smart and then sprinted down the sideline. When Smart launched it, White was 20 feet away, standing near the corner around the 3-point line.

By the time the ball spun out, White had somehow gotten himself to the rim. . . .

"I mean, it don't do no good to stand in the corner there," White said later . . . "Whether he makes it or not, so I just was crashing the glass, and it came right to me."

Poetry in Motion ☘️ pic.twitter.com/VaLcG9QjQg

— 𝙍𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙮 ☘️ (@CelticsRiley) May 28, 2023

Can't stop thinking about itpic.twitter.com/eBgmbMcebJ

— CelticsNation (57-25) (11/16) (@CookedByCeltics) May 29, 2023

$7.90 — Cheap

As seen at Amazon.com, May 29, 3:00 AM (ET).

After Investigation, NBC Sports Fires A's Broadcatser Who Said Racial Slur On Air

After conducting an internal review, NBC Sports California has fired Oakland Athletics broadcaster Glen Kuiper, effective immediately. 

Kuiper was suspended on May 5, after uttering a racial slur during a segment before a game against the Royals. Kuiper mentioned visiting the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, but he uttered a racial slur when he should have said "Negro".

Kuiper kept on talking after uttering the slur while his booth partner, former pitcher Dallas Braden, did not  react at all. After numerous people wondered about Braden's non-reaction, he explained he hadn't heard the slur because of the "nuances of live television". 

It was not until the sixth inning that Kuiper vaguely referred to the incident, stating that something he said "didn't come out quite the way I wanted it to". The Athletics called using the slur "unacceptable". After  Kuiper was suspended, he issued another statement: "I could not be more sorry and horrified by what I said. I hope you will accept my sincerest apologies."

Associated Press:

A person familiar with the investigation said "the decision was based on a variety of factors, including information uncovered in the internal review." The person spoke on condition of anonymity and didn't divulge specific details because the network had not publicly disclosed the results of the investigation.

I'm assuming at least some of the "information uncovered" in NBC Sports' internal review included additional racist slurs used by Kuiper. He had been broadcasting A's games for more than 16 years and if his slate was clean during all that time and he was truly horrified, I can't see NBC firing him for uttering one repulsive word on the air. However, his initial apology was very lame and he made no real reference to what he said in his second statement either.