The Miami Heat were apparently the beneficiaries of four controversial decisions by officials late in their Game 6 win over the Boston Celtics on Friday night.
That assessment is based on the NBA’s Last Two Minute Report (L2M), which looks at all calls by officials in the final two minutes of close games. While the Heat eventually won by eight points, 111-103, the final result remained in doubt for much of the fourth quarter.
What might be surprising to many basketball fans is that the Heat were able to benefit from some wrong calls despite the fact that the game was being played on the road in Boston.
The Celtics gained some benefit from the fact that their leading scorer on the night, Jayson Tatum, was not whistled for traveling with 1:11 left in the game. That allowed him to score on a jumper and cut the Celtics’ deficit to four points.
In contrast, the Celtics’ inbound violation had no bearing on the final score. That’s because it came with a little over 10 seconds left and the Heat leading by six.
The clutch win for the Heat spared them from watching their season come to an end on the road. Now, they’ll be able to play the all-or-nothing Game 7 on their home court on Sunday night.
However, the road team has won four of the six games in this series. That means that having home-court advantage for the pivotal battle serves as no guarantee for the Heat to make another trip to the finals.
The Heat will make very effort to make sure that the final score requires no L2M report and sends them to face the Golden State Warriors for the NBA title.