LAS VEGAS — Mfiondu Kabengele started to hop up and down, then paused. Head coach Ben Sullivan’s arms rose in the air, then fell to his head, as did Trevion Williams’. The rest of the Celtics on the floor looked down at Matt Ryan, who just buried a long three-point heave off the glass with 0.8 seconds remaining, hobbled to the floor falling forward into MarJon Beauchamp and injuring his left ankle.
That fear quickly return to jubilation for Ryan, hugging Bucks big man Sandro Mamukelashvili in the post-game hand shake line, then embracing a staffer who approached him to celebrate. Ryan just played one of the most important games of his life, hitting 6-of-11 shots from three. His 10-for-19 3PT efficiency through two games and exclamation point to cap an all-time chaotic 111-109 Summer League win over Milwaukee might be enough to convince a team, Celtics or not, he belongs on an active roster. Sullivan and his coaching staff had a major hand in setting up the moment — and earned a feather in their cap too toward their career aspirations.
“It’s pretty emotional,” Ryan said post-game, tearing up. “It’s been a crazy 11 months. I was home for a year and a half. I don’t know if you guys heard my story, but I was driving DoorDash a year ago. To be here and part of the Boston Celtics is special.”
Ryan shook off the injury as a tweak following the behind-the-back dribble move that set up the shot, a floater off the glass that he initially thought had veered to the left and long off the rim. Instead, it bounced in.
Boston overcame a four-point deficit with 2:40 to play behind a Kabengele put back and another Ryan three on a feed from new addition Justin Jackson. Juhann Begarin missed a free throw, allowing Mamukelashvili to tie the game by spinning into the lane and hammering a dunk over Kabengele. JD Davison missed another shot at the line, before hitting his second to give the Celtics a 108-107 lead. Only the scoreboard read 108-107 Bucks.
Moments earlier, with 3:04 to play, the officials took a point away from the Celtics and gave it to the Bucks while reviewing a Milwaukee challenge on an out-of-bounds call. The score had already corrected itself from a previous mistake, but the officials changed it, citing a free throw that was awarded to the wrong side.
From that point on until the Davison free throw with 11.7 seconds remaining, the two teams played with the wrong score, 104-100, instead of the 103-101. That meant Ryan’s three with 1:48 to play pulled the Celtics within one on the floor instead of actually giving Boston the lead, Begarin’s free throw tied the game instead of giving Boston a two-point lead and Mamukelashveli’s dunk gave the Bucks a lead instead of tying the game at 107 like it should’ve.
So when Davison missed his first free throw, it looked like the Celtics lost a chance to tie the game and would have to begin fouling the Bucks. Then, a Boston staffer caught the error just in time. After Davison hit the second, Sullivan pulled the officials aside again for a long review where they scanned the printed-out box scores. It turns out the Celtics had erroneously been awarded one point on a dunk and the Bucks had been given a phantom extra point on a three-pointer midway through the fourth. The officials flipped the score to put Boston in the lead thanks to the Celtics staffer who went back and watched the replay to catch it.
“It felt like (the score changed) a few times,” Sullivan said. “They’re trying to get it right, everyone’s just trying to figure it out and do the right thing. There’s only so much you can control when they’re like, ‘hey coach, this is the score,’ and then they go look at it and they come back and they say, ‘hey coach, now this is the score,’ and I’m just like, ‘what can you do?’ They were talking to us in the back, they have the video, they’re looking at the score, getting the books, the box scores and all that. They’re trying to figure it out and they’re like, ‘hey, you’ve better have them check it again right now.’ We went over there … and they’re like ‘hey, you need to try and get this right, there’s no more plays after this.’ So they looked at it one more time and they said they got it right, so hopefully it benefited us in the end. They’re like, ‘hey coach, the score’s wrong.'”
The fourth quarter threw everything imaginable for a head coach at Sullivan, who wasn’t initially sure what he wanted to accomplish personally at Summer League other than serving his players. He yelled out with 5:20 remaining how much he wanted to challenge the play, but didn’t given the time and score, which was correct at the time. That changed one minute later, when Wigginton hit a three and the scorers added four points and then only added one on the Begarin dunk that followed.
When the dust settled and the score got corrected the Celtics bench and fans in attendance jokingly applauded the officials finally reaching the correct score. Head coach Vin Baker and the Bucks sideline left the sequence exasperated, already frustrated by a no-call on a Kabengele block when the score was 94-94 that looked like goaltending.
“We were just trying to let the refs figure out what they had to figure out,.” Ryan told CLNS Media. “A little frustrating for both sides, the delay in the game, messing with the rhythm, but at the end of the day the refs got to do what they’ve got to do. A few minutes before that, they gave them a four-point lead, then they gave us a one-point lead. It was just wacky. Luckily, we were able to win.”
The Bucks got fouled anyway, but where Wigginton would’ve put Milwaukee ahead by three, the Celtics trailed by one and could create some uncertainty in real time. Sullivan told his team to play on after the second free throw. Ryan signaled no timeout to his teammates, trailing by one and needing to run full-court to reach the basket.
He grabbed the ball, tossed it behind his back crossing half court to shake free from Beauchamp and tossed the shot into the air, coach, staffer and player creating a moment that could propel both to new heights in their careers.
“I’ve talked to a lot of different coaches over the years, people have different opinions on what they think. With six seconds left, you can definitely call timeout, you can draw up a play, you can get everyone organized and everyone structured, but on that free throw situation there’s a chance that he misses. If he makes it, I can still call timeout, but I just brought everyone together and was like, ‘hey, we’re just going to play.’ Get it in-bounds and play,’ and if you have six seconds, hopefully in that flow, transition state, somebody can get lost, they’re communicating who they have and someone can get loose, and luckily Matt got a little bit of daylight, he let one go and fortunately it went in for us.”
