PORTLAND, Maine – An inspiring run through the G League playoffs came to a devastating end for the Maine Celtics Monday night, as they came up 17 points short of their first championship.
The Oklahoma City Blue battled back after suffering a 20-point defeat in Game 1 of the best-of-three series by winning Game 2 on their home court before capturing the title with a 117-100 win in a do-or-die Game 3 at Portland Expo Building.
It was a tight contest until around the four-minute mark of the second quarter when OKC turned a 42-40 lead into a 63-40 halftime advantage. That 21-0 run was extended to a 28-0 run out of the break, as the Blue went up, 70-40.
Maine managed to cut the deficit in half by the 3:21 mark of the fourth quarter but didn’t have enough left in the tank to get over the hump.
The Celtics were already hobbled heading into the game, as two-way center Neemias Queta played through an illness after nearly having to sit out, and rookie wing Jordan Walsh played through an ankle injury that he suffered early in the first quarter.
Despite the frustrating result, head coach Blaine Mueller reflected fondly on the journey. After a .500 start through the first two-thirds of the regular season, his squad surged to a 10-2 finish before battling its first Finals appearance.
“Certainly not the result we wanted, especially at home,” he told Celtics.com after the game. "I wish we could’ve given a better game for our fans, a better game for our guys, overall. But a tremendous amount of individual growth over the course of the season. We set out as a staff to our three core tenets in terms of what we wanted to provide, and that was joy, development, and winning. All three of those things are very much intertwined and interconnected, and we had a hell of a lot of fun.”
Celtics two-way player JD Davison played a huge role in that run, all the way to the final game in which he tallied 22 points, 10 assists, four rebounds, and four steals.
“To be able to get to this point to where we’re at now,” the point guard said, “I just can’t explain the way this group fought and just came together from the beginning to now.”
Maine’s fans played a significant part in the team's success, as well, filling every inch of its small gymnasium with deafening cheers. The Celtics were a shining light for the state after it had gone through tragedy at the start of the season following the mass shooting that took place in Lewiston, Maine.
Mueller said that the environment those fans created, “was fantastic. It was palpable. You walk in there and feel the excitement, feel the buzz in the crowd. Our guys unfortunately didn’t get it done for them – I wish we could have given our fans a better performance – but they’ve been tremendous the whole year, especially throughout this playoff run.”
After the disappointment has settled, Mueller hopes his team can take a look back and appreciate the run that they made. It’s certainly something that he doesn’t take for granted in his first year as a head coach.
“I told the guys, we didn’t need a championship to know how special a team this is, how special the locker room is,” Mueller concluded. “It would’ve been nice to have it so everybody else would know how special it is. But for me, this is the best year of my life. I had so much fun … And I couldn’t be more proud of them.”