Derrick White hustled his way into Celtics history in Game 6: ‘All we could say was, Oh my God’

MIAMI — At the moment Derrick White’s buzzer-beating layup fell through the basket, his father, Richard, could not celebrate yet. The officials still needed to rule whether the putback bucket would count.

Few reviews have ever weighed more. If the referees waved off the basket, Boston’s season would end in a crushing fourth-quarter collapse. If they determined the score counted, Derrick’s shot would head straight to Celtics lore. He would be the savior of the season. The extender of the Eastern Conference finals. The humble, unassuming guard with the wherewithal to hustle his way into history. On the court, Derrick believed he released the ball just in time. In their Denver area home, his parents held their breath.

“Did he get it off?” Richard wondered.

Yes. Just barely. In the final fraction of a second, Derrick rescued the Celtics’ season. At the last possible moment, he crashed past Max Strus, flew toward the legends of John Havlicek and Larry Bird and finished a 104-103 Game 6 thriller with a putback of a Marcus Smart miss.

“I stood up,” Richard said during a phone conversation. “My wife and I slapped hands. And all we could say was, ‘Oh, my God.’”

Omg that’s my boy

— Richard White (@RamblinWreck34) May 28, 2023

None of the Celtics players had seen an ending like that before. White became just the second player ever to sink a buzzer-beater that came with his team trailing in an elimination game. The other? Michael Jordan, whose hanging jumper over the top of Craig Ehlo in a 1989 first-round series became known as “The Shot.” If Boston goes on to win the series and eventually a championship, White will be immortal. He met the end of the season and said not today. The Celtics still have a chance to become the first team to come back from a 3-0 series deficit because he turned Smart’s missed shot into an everlasting memory — and just in time.

“I was like, ‘Oh no,’” Grant Williams told The Athletic. “And then I look up and D. White was a miracle.”

In some ways, White’s career has always been a miracle. He didn’t receive any Division I scholarship offers out of high school. He started his college career at a Division II school. Before a late growth spurt, he looked more like a clothed stick figure than a future NBA player. Nobody back then could have dreamed how far basketball would take him. But he put on muscle. He shot up to 6-foot-4. Through it all, he held onto the humility and team-first mentality of that skinny little kid from Colorado.

The Celtics love White because he will do anything for the team. Because he doesn’t care if he receives any credit. Because, no matter what, he just wants to make the right play. He earned a spot on the NBA’s All-Defensive Second Team this season. He emerged as one of Boston’s best and most consistent players while never missing a game. His development changed the Celtics on both sides of the court. Still, when Joe Mazzulla decided to shake up the starting lineup late in the second round, nobody needed to worry whether White would care about his move to the bench. He told Mazzulla he was all for the decision.

“He’s a great player, great person, great human being,” Williams said. “So it’s only right. It’s only right that he’s the one to do it.”

In poker terminology, the Celtics had one out. As White chased after the rebound, hope seemed absent. Boston had squandered a 10-point lead during the final four minutes. On Miami’s final possession, Al Horford had fouled Jimmy Butler on a long jumper. The referees initially called the shot a 2-point attempt, which would have sent Butler to the line with a chance to tie the game, but a video review showed his feet behind the arc. The extra free throw gave Butler the chance to give the Heat a lead. He calmly sank all three free throws to put Miami ahead 103-102. Jaylen Brown said he went into “full prayer mode” after that.

“Whatever prayer I got, whatever Dua I got,” Brown said, “reciting it over and over in my head.”

Maybe the prayers worked. Though Mazzulla’s challenge of the foul on Butler was deemed unsuccessful, it allowed the referees to review how much time should be left. Instead of 2.1 seconds, the amount of time initially remaining after Horford’s foul on Butler, the referees put 3.0 seconds on the clock. That gave the Celtics enough time to think about an offensive rebound if their initial shot missed.

“That challenge,” said Williams, “saved our ass.”

White needed every piece of that extra time. He actually began the final play as the inbounds passer. When his father saw that, he initially thought his son might end up with the ball back in his hands for a jump shot at the buzzer. Instead, after the Heat denied Jayson Tatum the ball, Smart flashed toward White to open himself for a pass. Smart remembered how the Celtics had failed to even produce a shot at the end of their Game 4 loss to Philadelphia in the second round. He wanted to go quicker this time. If the Celtics missed their first try, he wanted them to have enough time for a second-chance opportunity.

Miami’s eagerness to keep the ball away from Tatum helped to free White. He flared to the corner, then darted toward the basket once he saw Smart go up for a 3-point shot. Max Strus, after helping to prevent a Tatum catch, was too late recovering to White to keep him off the glass. Smart’s miss spun out directly into White’s hands. Maybe he simply got lucky at the right time. Maybe his instincts placed him in the perfect position.

Derrick White’s buzzer-beater. (Issac Baldizon / NBAE via Getty Images)

“It don’t do no good to stand in the corner there, whether he makes it or not,” said White. “So I just was crashing the glass, and it came right to me.”

Al Horford raved about the poise it took to track down that rebound and put back the finish in time.

“That’s legendary,” said Horford.

Williams said he thought the shot would count when it left White’s hands, but wasn’t sure before the review confirmed the bucket.

“I’m saying, ‘It went in! Good! Good! Good!’” said Williams. “I didn’t run to Derrick because I didn’t want to get hyped and then the next thing you know we’re disappointed. And then I just looked, looked up at the Jumbotron, waiting for (the replay) to pull up, and then it showed that it got out of his hands and the red (light to signal the end of the game) goes afterwards. And wherever D. White was, I ran to him.”

White’s putback will live next to “Havlicek stole the ball” and “Now there’s a steal by Bird” among the greatest postseason plays in Celtics franchise history. After White’s forever moment, Game 7 in Boston should be mayhem. The Celtics have won three straight games to tie the series. They have played with fire throughout the playoffs. Maybe they can walk through it too.

They needed to on Saturday. The Celtics shot 7 of 35 (20 percent) on 3-point attempts, their worst mark of the season for both makes and percentage. Outside of Smart and White, the rest of the team went 0 of 17 from long distance. In a stressful, desperate game for both sides, the Celtics’ final four minutes would have been remembered as a catastrophe. The Boston players would have needed to live with regrets, not just about the way Game 6 ended but also about the way they approached the first three games of the series. After Butler sank all three of his free throws, nothing short of an epic response would have worked for the Celtics.

“My heart sank,” said Williams. “I had the most heart rollercoaster of a night. We were up by 10 with (four) minutes left, it was like, ‘OK, we’ve got this.’ You look up, you’re tied, it’s like, ‘OK, this is tough.’ (After Butler’s free throws) you’re like, ‘OK, we have one more chance.’”

Two more chances, actually. White capitalized on the second. Six days earlier, he had stood shaking in the Celtics’ locker room while detailing how he simply needed to defend at a higher level. On Saturday, he reveled in the celebration his buzzer-beater produced. Even before the game-winning layup, White hit three key 3-pointers and helped to lock up Butler over 42 important minutes. That matchup went sideways early in the series but White has stood up to the challenge since then. Mazzulla reinserted him into the starting lineup at halftime of Game 2, knowing that this series called for more White. In whatever role, he has been steady for the Celtics all season.

“I’ll tell you one thing, man, if you don’t know who D. White is, you know who he is now,” Smart said. “I mean, that dude has been phenomenal for us this whole, whole year. You know, just playing the way that we knew he could play when we picked him up. And it’s been refreshing for us, and it’s been a joy to watch and a joy to be on the court with him.”

(Jesse D. Garrabrant / NBAE via Getty Images)

Boston still needs to knock off Butler, Erik Spoelstra and this stubborn Heat squad one more time. That’s a problem for Monday. Late Saturday night, Brown stressed how far the Celtics have come after dropping the first three games of the series. After winning Game 6 in such monumental fashion, Brown said they believe they can push through anything.

“It gives you a supreme boost in confidence, man,” Brown said. “It doesn’t get too much worse than being down 0-3. We feel like we’ve been to hell and back. We feel like we can face any adversity that gets thrown at us in the duration of the game or the duration of the season or in the postseason. It all means nothing if we don’t come out and give our best effort on our home floor on Monday night.”

The Celtics have White to thank for the opportunity to keep playing. His father said his son had never nailed a buzzer-beating game-winner before. This one would have topped any others regardless. It forced a Game 7. It revived the Celtics’ season. And it gave his father a precious gift.

“The main thing is I get another game where we get to watch Derrick and the Celtics play,” said Richard White. “You want to win and everything, but (I am) a dad. And he’s our son. And we just like watching him play.”

Derrick White hustled his way into Celtics history in Game 6: ‘All we could say was, Oh my God’

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