The Houston Rockets built a 26-point lead in the first half on Thursday against the Boston Celtics, and it appeared that there was little reason to watch the rest of the nationally televised clash of league titans.
Then Boston began to eat into the lead. It was a 31-16 third quarter that made it a game again, and the Celtics didn’t stop there. They cut the deficit to one on multiple occasions, but were not able to grab a lead coming down the stretch.
Then it got weird.
Jayson Tatum dunked with seven seconds to go to make it 98-97 in favor of Houston, and before the Rockets could inbound, James Harden committed an offensive foul:
Here’s that first foul on Harden. What do you think? (via @AdamJosephSport) pic.twitter.com/TF1nL0PfSY
— SLAM Magazine (@SLAMonline) December 29, 2017
So Boston got the ball back and Al Horford converted to improbably put the Celtics ahead. Then, somehow, it happened again:
Don’t love the ref making this call in that situation, but Harden did commit a foul. pic.twitter.com/8lrJ2DPzdc
— Liam Martin (@LiamWBZ) December 29, 2017
The Celtics escaped with a 99-98 win after trailing by as many as 26 thanks to a truly strange ending.
