How Celtics erased 6-point deficit in final 24 seconds to stun Thunder

The Boston Celtics have had some spectacularly improbable late-game wins this season, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat time after time after time.

There was their 26-point comeback against the Houston Rockets, which they completed when Marcus Smart goaded James Harden into two offensive fouls in the final 11 seconds. There was their last-second win over the Indiana Pacers, in which they trailed by a point, without possession of the ball, with four seconds left - but instead of fouling, Terry Rozier picked off a Bojan Bogdanovic pass and took it the other way for a game-winning dunk. And then there was a comeback from 16 down against the Portland Trail Blazers, which they won on an Al Horford buzzer-beater.

No team has won more one-possession games than the Celtcis this year. They'd already won five one-point games coming into Tuesday night's tilt against the Oklahoma City Thunder. And that's when they authored arguably their most unlikely victory of all. For a game to swing as violently as this one did requires agency on the part of both teams - incredible execution on one side, and on the other, an incredible lack thereof - and also a healthy dose of chance.

The game was tight throughout, but after a pair of Russell Westbrook free throws, the Thunder led 98-92 with 24.7 seconds to play. According to Inpredictable, they had a 99.4 percent chance of winning at that point. The Celtics called a timeout that seemed more like a formality than anything.

Out of the timeout, Horford sprung Jayson Tatum with a screen that forced Steven Adams to switch out onto the perimeter. With a mandate to take away the 3-point line, Adams crowded Tatum, and basically allowed the rookie to waltz past him into the paint. Three Thunder players awaited him there, but only Corey Brewer offered a good-faith contest, and Tatum made a nice mid-air adjustment to finish the layup and slice the deficit to four. But that was still a perfectly acceptable outcome for the Thunder, since the play took seven seconds off the clock, and they avoided fouling, retaining a two-possession lead. It was then that everything went sideways.

They inbounded the ball to Westbrook, and he was immediately fouled and sent to the line. He clanked the first free throw, but made the second to push the lead back up to five. The Celtics had a timeout left, but opted not to use it. Terry Rozier picked up the inbounds at his own 3-point line, dribbled to the Thunder's, pulled up, and splashed a triple in Westbrook's eye. The whole play took 4.5 seconds. Two-point game.

The Thunder managed to inbound again, and they actually caught a bit of a break when the Celtics missed a chance to foul Brewer - a career 71.4 percent free-throw shooter - and instead fouled Carmelo Anthony, a career 81.2 percent shooter from the stripe. But Anthony short-armed the first freebie, and went too strong on the second. Adams had inside position on Horford, but the rebound came off long, Tatum snagged it, and the Celtics used that last timeout with 7.7 seconds left in regulation.

The Thunder didn't really do anything wrong on the last possession. There were no defensive breakdowns, and help came from the right places at the right times. They forced the Celtics away from the middle of the floor on the inbounds, and Westbrook did a good enough job tracking Rozier - the intended target - off a flare screen on the far wing. Adams picked up Horford near the logo, forcing him to swing the ball to Tatum, who had to split two defenders and very nearly had his pocket picked by Westbrook.

"We kinda messed the play up," Tatum confessed after the game.

He managed to maintain control of the basketball, though, and kicked it to the inbounder, Marcus Morris, on the right wing. Morris pump-faked, Paul George leapt to challenge, and Morris calmly side-stepped him. The Thunder, knowing the Celtics likely had time to make one pass at most before getting a shot up, instinctively collapsed on the ball, leaving Westbrook to zone up Horford and Rozier on the weak side. Adams was first to arrive, and offered up a near-perfect challenge on Morris' shot.

But Morris hit the three anyway, because the Celtics - while not quite as magical in the clutch recently as they were early in the season - still have some pixie dust left in their reserves.

There was still 1.2 seconds on the clock, but when Westbrook missed a last-ditch heave at the buzzer, the Celtics had made another miracle, and the Thunder had missed an opportunity to further entrench themselves in the top half of the Western Conference playoff bracket.