Celtics fail to come back from down 26 in Game 3, lose 109-103

The Boston Celtics went down by 26 in the first half, and through multiple injuries, they were unable to overcome a balanced offensive effort from the Heat going to lose Game 3 109-103. Jaylen Brown led the way with his 40 points, and for Miami, Bam Adebayo was stellar, finishing the game with 29 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists. Brown also led the way with 7 turnovers.

Pretty much everything went Miami’s way for most of the first half, winning the first quarter by 21 points. Bam Adebayo outscored both his Game 1 and 2 performance combined and was an offensive hub, scoring in both face-up and post-up situations. Jimmy Butler finally cooled off, but he was still a steadying presence that contributed run-stopping buckets at unfortunate times for the Celtics. Kyle Lowry (11 points, 4 steals) returned, and although he was limited from a minutes perspective, he was an absolute pest on both ends of the ball.

For a while in the second quarter, the Celtics looked like they were about to get it going only for some self-inflicted wounds to rear their ugly heads at ill-timed moments. Boston committed 11 first-half turnovers, with all of those turnovers coming from the starters (including two from Daniel Theis in just 7 minutes of play and three apiece for Al Horford and Jayson Tatum). That combined with poor 3-point shooting really harmed all comeback efforts. Just wen Boston was able to make a dent, Miami ballooned the lead back to 25.

With 1:45 left in the half, Al Horford (20 points, 14 rebounds) took matters into his own hands, spurring a quick 10-0 run to take the Celtics into the locker room. This cut a 26-point deficit to just 15 with half of the game left.

Jimmy Butler was ruled out of the second half with knee inflammation. Early in the second half, Marcus Smart went for an offensive rebound only for Kyle Lowry to land awkwardly on his right ankle. All of Lowry’s weight landed on him.

Boston came roaring back after Smart’s injury, getting the crowd…