Raptors Beat Celtics With Buzzer Beater to Cut Boston’s Series Lead in Half (Reports)

Well that was a roller coaster of emotion.

The Boston Celtics held a two-point lead with 0.5 seconds left in Game 3 against the Toronto Raptors after Kemba Walker found Daniel Theis under the basket for what–at the time–was anticipated to be the game-winner.

The Celtics were on their way to a commanding 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinals series, right? But the game isn’t over until the final buzzer, which OG Anunoby beat.

Toronto’s seven-footer, wide open, heroically responded with a corner 3-pointer off an assist from Kyle Lowry, who took the ball out of bounds. Anunoby’s trey gave the Raptors a 104-103 win in Game 3.

It also means the Celtics’ series lead was cut to 2-1 with Game 4 scheduled for Saturday.

Lowry led all scorers with 31 points while Walker led the Celtics with 29 of his own, 21 of which came in the first half.

The Celtics shot 47 percent from the field while the Raptors shot a similar 46.6 percent.

More NBA: Watch Celtics’ Kemba Walker Close Out Impressive First Half With 3-Pointer
Here’s how it all went down:

STARTING FIVE
PG: Kemba Walker
SG: Marcus Smart
SF: Jaylen Brown
PF: Jayson Tatum
C: Daniel Theis

KEMBA TIME
It took Walker three quarters to find his groove in the Celtics’ Game 2 win, but that wasn’t the case Thursday.

The point guard scored 17 first-quarter points to lead the Celtics to a 33-28 lead after 12 minutes. Walker shot 5-for-6 from the field while he was also a perfect 5-for-5 at the charity stripe.

And while it was Walker who led the C’s in scoring (nobody else had more than four points), Brown filled up the stat sheet himself with four points, team-high five rebounds and two blocked shots.

Boston shot 50 percent from the field (11-for-22) while the Raptors got 11 points from Kyle Lowry and shot 42.3 percent (11-for-26) from the field.

.@KembaWalker from deep 👌🏾 pic.twitter.com/qK2hEVv19U

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) September 3, 2020