Back on the stats of the two matches of the night
4 : The Celtics won the series against the Raptors 4-3, with victories in Games 1, 2, 5 and 7, or 4 games where they were supposed to play away. Of course, the circumstances are exceptional and no team has ever won 4 away games in a series of playoffs.
29/12/7 : Jayson Tatum had 29 points at 9/23 including 4/8 at 3-pts, 12 rebounds and 7 assists, and finished top scorer, rebounder and passer of the game. He is only the 3rd player in history after LeBron James (2018) and Larry Bird (1984) to achieve this on a Game 7.
20 : Tatum signed his 20th game at least 20 points in the playoffs, the 4th total in history for a player under 23. He matches Kevin Durant. Only Kobe Bryant (32), LeBron James (29) and Derrick Rose (22) did better.
4 : The Raptors, reigning champions, therefore fail even before the conference finals. The last time a defending champion didn’t make it to at least the conference finals was Spurs in 2015. Since the playoff format is like this with 16 teams, it’s only the 4th time that neither seed number 1 nor seed number 2 arrives in the conference final. This is the first time this has happened in the East. Dallas (3) beat OKC (4) in 2011, San Antonio (3) beat Utah (4) in 2007, and Portland (3) beat Phoenix (5) in 1990.
0-6 : The Los Angeles Clippers have never reached the conference finals in their history, it’s not for lack of chances. Indeed yesterday was the 6th time they had the opportunity to qualify for the conference finals by winning, but they lost those 6 games.
16 : The Clippers also had a 16-point lead against Denver before losing. This is the 4th biggest gap squandered by a team that had the opportunity to qualify in the conference finals since 1997. The Clippers have just inflicted 2 of these 4 defeats.
24/76 : Fred VanVleet shot a very ugly 3-point 24/74 on the streak, making him only the second player in history to miss at least 50 3-point shots in a 7-game streak . James Harden did it in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
7 : 71 seconds from the end of the meeting Michael Porter Jr. had not yet scored a point. He finally finished with 7 points, 2 more than the Clippers on the latter 1’11.
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