Isaiah goes bonkers late, drops 53 to lead Celtics to OT win over Wizards

Isaiah Thomas, the league's most prolific fourth-quarter scorer throughout the regular season, saved perhaps his most electrifying display of late-game heroics for Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

The Boston Celtics point guard went haywire in the fourth quarter and overtime, ultimately finishing with a 2017 postseason-high 53 points on 18-of-33 shooting to lead his team to a 129-119 win and a 2-0 series lead over the Washington Wizards. That's the highest-scoring playoff game since Allen Iverson dropped 55 way back in 2003, and it ties Thomas with Jerry West for 12th all time in single-game playoff scoring. Listed at a generous 5-foot-9, he's the shortest player ever to drop 50 or more in a playoff game.

The Celtics were playing catch-up for the majority of the game, and trailed the Wizards by as many as 14 points in the third quarter. For 40 minutes, the game belonged to Washington's All-Star point guard, John Wall. But the Celtics hung around, the Wizards started to run out of gas, and Thomas completely took over.

He hit pullup threes out of the pick-and-roll, slalomed his way to the rim, drew shooting fouls with his pump fake, and destroyed Washington on switches. He broke traps, and ankles, and, eventually, the Wizards' spirit. He tied the game with a pair of free throws in the last 15 seconds of regulation, then ran circles around his ragged opponents in the extra frame. He scored 29 points in the fourth and overtime; the Wizards as a team scored 30.

The circumstances Thomas has been playing under make the performance all the more extraordinary. He's been playing through unimaginable pain, having lost his sister Chyna a day before the Celtics' first postseason game. He said he wanted to give up and quit when he heard the news, but he hasn't missed a game, vowing to keep playing for her.

"I know she wouldn't want me to stop," he said in his eulogy.

Tuesday night would've been her 23rd birthday.