Pivotal Game 5 awaits Boston as it returns home vs. Wizards

No one said it was going to be easy. In Washington's 10 playoff games, the home team is 9-1 entering Game 5, with the lone road win being the Wizards' Game 6 win to closeout the Hawks in Atlanta.

The Washington Wizards and Boston Celtics have different views on recent history as they head into Game 5 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series Wednesday night.

In Game 3, however, Beal only played 26 minutes because of foul trouble and the difference in score. "And now, as poorly as we played for the last two, we're still 2-2". We have a lot of guys that can fill it up on any given night, and it just happened to be me tonight.

"I think that that showed the character of all the players involved", Ainge said. He is aware that he has to step it up with the series returning to Boston. And while his 16-point showing against the Rockets on Sunday resulted in a Spurs loss (the man can only do so much!) he's been spectacular in his team's two wins, including a 34-point, 8 assist, 7 rebound performance in Game 2.

"That's the playoffs for you", Boston point guard Isaiah Thomas said.

Either the Celtics or Wizards will advance to face the defending NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference finals with that victor advancing to next month's NBA Finals.

Wizards coach Scott Brooks said he warned Kelly Oubre to wear earplugs for Game 5 after he served a one-game suspension for charging over Boston's Kelly Olynyk.

"I don't want to say just me", Bradley said. But I don't care. "That's the most important thing for us as a team".

Then in a Game 4 in which the two teams were tied 48-48 at one point, the Wizards ran the Celtics out of the Verizon Center in the second half, going on a 26-0 third quarter run before eventually evening up the series. "Tip their hats to them".

We should have seen it coming. And it's going to be big.

No one is really talking about G-time, probably because he's on a Utah squad that's about to get swept out of the playoffs by Golden State.

The Celtics are certainly lucky to be in the position they are. Midway through the second quarter of Game 5, though, he had attempted just three shots and scored as many points.

After winning six straight, the Celtics have now dropped their last two games, and in embarrassing fashion. These two teams have had a budding rivalry from this regular season and it's only intensified in this series.

The league announced Wednesday that it was fining the Celtics guard $25,000 for the incident, which occurred during the Celtics' Game 3 loss in Washington.

That 16-0 run the Wizards started the series with (in Boston) was bad.

The Wizards responded with more energy after halftime, but each of their mini-runs were quickly beaten back by Boston, which continued to share the ball and take advantage of their fast break opportunities. So I'm treating it as a must-win.

Boston's front office chief has already been to the NBA's mountaintop; first as a player winning a pair of championships in the '80s and then as the architect of the Big 3 that brought the Celtics their 17th National Basketball Association championship in 2008.