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Kevin Millar had an important message for the Celtics ahead of Game 5 against Heat
"This is Game 5 at the Garden. I wanna hear you ‘Cowboy Up!’ Let’s go!”
There have been 150 teams in NBA history that have fallen into an 0-3 deficit in a playoff series.
The Celtics are looking to be the first basketball squad to come back and win their round against such daunting odds.
The math may not be in their favor, but the Celtics are getting some words of encouragement from another Boston-based squad that accomplished such an undertaking.
Ahead of the Celtics’ Game 5 matchup against the Miami Heat on Thursday night, former Red Sox first baseman Kevin Millar offered up a familiar rallying cry.
Millar and the 2004 Red Sox became the first team in MLB history to erase an 0-3 deficit when they came back to beat the Yankees in the ALCS. Boston went on to win its first World Series title in 86 years less than two weeks later.
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“All right Boston, Kevin Millar here. Celtics, what I’m talking about is we got to believe,” Millar said in a video posted to Twitter by WBZ’s Dan Roche. “We were down 0-3, now we got one in Miami. This is Game 5 at the Garden. I wanna hear you ‘Cowboy Up!’ Let’s go!”
Millar isn’t the first former Red Sox to dole out some words of advice to the Celtics.
David Ortiz, who spurred the Sox’ improbable comeback against their Bronx-based nemesis thanks to two walk-off hits, said that the Celtics need to take things in stride as they try to climb out of this deficit.
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“There’d be no better time than this one for that happen,” Ortiz said in a recent interview with the Associated Press. “If you do it in basketball, it’s got to be the same city. You know what I’m saying. … “Being 3-0, you’ve got two choices.
“You either quit or you go back out, and in professional sports, once you get to that point, there’s no way to quit. Once you get there — even if you’re 3-0 — you’re not thinking about quitting, you’re thinking about ‘OK, I hit bottom. I’ve got to go step-by-step now. … “‘I cannot try to win three games at once.”
This 2023 Eastern Conference Finals has already featured plenty of callbacks to that memorable comeback orchestrated by the Red Sox 19 years ago.
It was a good omen for Boston that both Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez were in attendance at Kaseya Center for Game 4 on Tuesday night. The Celtics kept their season alive with a 116-99 win that night.
A special appearance from Pedro Martinez? Mark Bellhorn?
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Maybe Cody Zeller gets a flagrant foul for slapping a ball out of a Celtics player’s hands?
Ideally, Game 5 of Celtics/Heat doesn’t follow the same script as Game 5 of Red Sox/Yankees (14 innings) and carries on late into the night.
Not sure an already nervous TD Garden crowd can stomach a 4OT game.
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