Wang shook his head. "You're giving me way too much credit. No matter how good I am, I couldn't score 60 in a quarter. Anyone who could do that wouldn't be human anymore. They'd be God."
Cheryl Miller smiled.
"I saw you say something to Brown before that final possession. Would you mind telling us what you said?"
Wang didn't hide it. He answered frankly, "I told him I'd hit a buzzer-beating three from beyond the arc at the left-side 45-degree angle, right over his head. I'm glad I pulled it off."
Miller immediately caught on. "That's how Celtics legend Larry Bird used to put away his opponents. You're using a Celtics legend's move against the Celtics!"
Wang shrugged. "I was paying tribute to a Celtics legend."
That remark nearly made the Celtics fans spit blood.
Beat you with your own best move.
Kill you—
and crush your spirit, too!
At that moment, in the Celtics' locker room,
the players wore expressions utterly different from the ones they'd had before the game.
Before tip-off, Embiid, Tatum, and Jaylen Brown had all been brimming with confidence. Given the Celtics' dominant performances on both ends of the court this season, they'd believed they could easily beat the Raptors, who'd been struggling this year.
Now, the first half was over. They were down by only one point, but they could feel the immense pressure bearing down on them.
That damned Wang had gone 11-for-11 from three in barely half a quarter, exploding for 34 points.
"Explosive" didn't begin to describe that performance. It was a nuclear blast!
To be fair, the Celtics had played pretty well throughout the second quarter.
In the six minutes after the midway point of the quarter, they'd knocked down three three-pointers. Their offense had performed as expected.
But