PHILADELPHIA: Jayson Tatum humbly believes he is one of the best basketball players in the NBA and not even a lengthy streak of missed shots in a win-or-else Game 6 could shake his faith.
Sometimes, though, a pep talk in the heat of the moment lifts even the most confident stars. Boston rookie coach Joe Mazzulla pulled the forward aside in a late timeout and didn’t draw a play or tell Tatum to keep shooting and soon the buckets would fall.
His message was more simple.
“I love you,” Mazzulla told Tatum. “That’s a pretty powerful statement.”
Tatum rewarded his coach’s love with decisive 3-pointers straight through the heart of a Philadelphia comeback that pushed the Celtics past the 76ers 95-86 on Thursday night to send the Eastern Conference semifinals back to Boston for Game 7.
“I kept looking at the time,” Tatum said. “I’ve got time, I’ve got time to make a difference. I believed that the whole time.”
Tatum buried one 3 for the 84-83 lead and a second that made it 87-83 and put the Celtics in firm control in front of a boisterous Philly crowd. Tatum stuck it to the 76ers with one final 3-pointer for a 95-84 lead.
The defending conference champs are in familiar territory. Boston trailed 3-2 last season in the second round against Milwaukee before it won Game 6 on the road and the clincher at home.
Game 7 is Sunday. The winner of the Miami-New York semifinal awaits the Celtics or 76ers.
In Phoenix, Nikola Jokic scored 32 points in another triple-double, Jamal Murray added 26 and the Denver Nuggets advanced to the Western Conference finals for the first time since 2020 by beating the short-handed Phoenix Suns 125-100 in Game 6 on Thursday night.
Denver’s series victory comes two seasons after the Nuggets were embarrassed in a second-round postseason sweep by the Suns. This time, it was the Suns getting blown out on their home floor to end the season for the second straight year.
The Nuggets will play in the conference finals for the first time since they lost to the Lakers in five games in the Florida bubble during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have never reached the NBA Finals.
The top-seeded Nuggets used a 23-2 run during the latter part of the first quarter to take a 44-26 lead and never looked back. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope — averaging 9.5 points in the playoffs — scored 17 in the first quarter while Jokic added 14.
Caldwell-Pope finished with 21 points. Jokic shot 13 of 18 from the field and added 12 assists and 10 rebounds.
Denver’s offensive onslaught continued in the second as the lead grew to 81-51 by halftime, leading to boos from Suns fans as players made their way to the locker room. The second half was essentially an afterthought.
Cameron Payne scored 31 points for Phoenix, hitting 7 of 9 3-pointers. Kevin Durant added 23.
The Suns were playing without injured starters Deandre Ayton and Chris Paul. Ayton sustained a rib contusion in Tuesday’s Game 5 while Paul has been out the past four games with a strained left groin.
Phoenix was eliminated in the Western Conference semifinals at home for a second straight season despite a blockbuster trade deadline deal for Durant, a 13-time All-Star and one of the game’s most prolific scorers. The 34-year-old had some good moments in the playoffs, but made just 1 of his first 10 shots on Thursday as the Suns fell into a huge hole.
Suns guard Devin Booker was brilliant in most of the postseason, averaging 36 points per game on 60 percent before Game 6. But the three-time All-Star finished with just 12 points on Thursday.
The home team won the first five games of the series until the Nuggets broke through in Game 6.
