Celtics good to last drop

Allen's 3-pointer burns Bobcats at the buzzer

Hero of the hour Ray Allen is hoisted on the shoulders of his teammates after knocking down a 3-pointer that handed the Celtics an improbable victory and left the Charlotte fans in shock. (STREETER LECKS/Reuters)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Try to imagine a Celtics game with no double digit leads - by either team. Or a Celtics game with more than 20 lead changes. Or a Celtics game where - gulp - the Celtics actually trailed in the fourth quarter and the outcome came down to the last shot. (Boy, did it ever.)

All of that transpired last night at Bobcats Arena. But no one could have envisioned the ending, which goes right to the top of the scene selections of the Milt Palacio Fabulous Finishes DVD. Trailing by 2 points with 4.7 seconds left, the Celtics came up with a steal off an inbounds pass, which in turn led to a winning 3-pointer at the buzzer by Ray Allen, who prior to that had missed 11 of 14 shots. The shot gave the Celtics a 96-95 victory, stunned the already-celebrating crowd of 19,201, not to mention the Bobcats players and coaches, all of whom stood in shock as Glen "Big Baby" Davis carried Allen off the floor on his shoulders.

It was an amazing final five seconds. Paul Pierce (23 points) missed a jumper from the foul line and Raymond Felton got the rebound. Allen quickly fouled Felton, but the Celtics were not over the limit, so the Bobcats had to put the ball in play. Jason Richardson tried to inbound the ball to Jeff McInnis, but Eddie House got his hand on it, deflecting it into the air to Pierce. In the past, Pierce might have wheeled and tried to shoot with the clock winding down and the game on the line. This time, he saw Allen, all alone, near the top of the key.

"My thought process is, he's wide open," said Pierce. "He's Ray Allen. He's one of the best 3-point shooters in NBA history. There you go."

Allen finished with 14 points.

"It felt good when it left my hands," said Allen. "But I'll tell you, a lot of them felt the same way and didn't go in. You just never know. But a shooter is always going to take that shot."

Allen, who also made a game-winner at the end of the second game of the season in Toronto, was mobbed by his teammates. The referees went to the replay machine to make sure the shot was off in time (there was no doubt) and declared the game finished.

It was a wrenching defeat for the undermanned Bobcats, who were without leading scorer Gerald Wallace (calf strain) and figured they had the game in hand after Pierce's miss. Even more crushing, the team still had a timeout, which it could have called to get the ball farther up the court.

"I think in all the excitement, [Richardson] made the pass before we could call the 20-second timeout," lamented Bobcats coach Sam Vincent. "To play that well against a team that good and feel like you have the game won, and not win, really makes it a tough loss."

It was probably the most unlikely Celtics victory since Palacio's famed winner in New Jersey back in the Rick Pitino regime. Pierce was there that night. "This one ranks right up there with Milt's," he chuckled.

This clearly was not the same Celtics team that 24 hours earlier had dismantled the Lakers in an emotion-packed victory in Boston. The Celtics shot 43.6 percent. They were outrebounded. They turned it over four times in the fourth quarter. And their trademark defense was not there, at least not with any continuity. The Bobcats shot 48.6 percent.

"Defensively, we didn't have it," coach Doc Rivers said. "We came late on everything. And they made a lot of tough shots. It was good to be lucky tonight. We were not good. We were lucky."

The game was a back-and-forth affair unlike most of the Celtics' previous 11 games. There were 25 lead changes, six in the fourth quarter. There were 13 ties. At no point in the game was the Celtics' lead bigger than 4 points while the largest Charlotte lead was a 9-pointer. In other words, this was, as Rivers thought it would be, a meat grinder.

"That was all I talked about before the game, how this was going to be a grind game," Rivers said. "And it was going to be a difficult game."

Rookie Jared Dudley of Boston College fame started for Wallace and had 11 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 assists in 39 minutes. He didn't look out of place at all. He was on the floor in those final, frantic minutes - and stood stunned like everyone else after Allen's shot.

Until Allen connected, the Celtics had not scored a point in more than four minutes. A runner by Pierce gave Boston a 93-92 lead with 4:01 left, but the Celtics came up empty on their next six possessions. Charlotte, meanwhile, regained the lead, 94-93, on a McInnis jumper with 3:36 left and added another point when Felton hit a free throw with 2:06 left.

Neither team scored again until the final shot.

"We were going to foul them if they got the ball into the play, but first you want to go for the steal," said House, going over the final play. "I got my hand on it, P [Pierce] got the ball and found Ray and, after that, it was curtains."