The Boston Celtics defeated the Miami Heat 117-106 in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Saturday, making the series score 2-1 instead of trailing 3-0.

Having been absent from the court for a month, Gordon Hayward finally returned for Boston. Though he only scored six points, five rebounds, and four assists, Hayward became Boston's second orchestrator who had better court vision than Kemba Walker thanks to his size. When Boston could make one more pass in the correct way in the offense, they were one step closer, breaking through Miami's defense.

"Gordon was great. Just having an extra guy who can make plays was huge for us. He had some big plays during this game, and he's only going to continue to go up," said Jaylen Brown.

"It meant everything. Obviously, we played a while without him. And I've said it before: crazy that anyone would think we're better without him. We're so much better when he's out there and so much more dynamic, so much more versatile when he's out there," said Jayson Tatum.

In the two games they won, Miami drilled a total of 30 triples, despite that Boston allowed the worst 3-point rates by their opponents before the East Finals. In Game 3, Miami only made 12 shots from downtown at a 3-point rate of 27.27 percent. Goran Dragic, Jae Crowder, and Kelly Olynyk combined were 3-19 from the 3-point line. Tyler Herro startled Boston's defense by going 4-5 from outside in the second quarter, but he missed all six attempts there in the second half.

3-point shooting was not the only thing Miami failed to do well in Game 3. Though their 2-3 zone defense had been very effective so far, they allowed Boston to break their front defense too easily on Saturday night. When Boston's players drove deep enough to drew help defense, they could pass the ball to open teammates that cut in from the baseline or challenging Bam Adebayo directly, which they began to do since the third quarter.

"We've got to start the game how we start the fourth. I feel like we're not the type of team where we can go through the motions and try and figure out everything in the first half, and then in the third or fourth, we just try to turn it on. It's not like that. We are not that type of team," said Adebayo.

"I think it gets old, playing from behind consistently. Especially against a great team like Boston and what they bring to the table," said Jimmy Butler.

Of course, Boston pocketed the victory thanks to their own efforts, and Brown was the team's biggest hero for that. Not only did he dropped team-high 26 points, seven rebounds and five assists, Brown also delivered three assists, making him the best example of the aggressive defense by Boston n this game. In fact, despite Hayward's return, Miami's zone defense still caused a lot of trouble for Boston. Boston's victory was partly built on their better fast break (17-13 in points), which came from their extra defensive pressure.

"We just made the plays that were presented to us. Whenever we had opportunities to drive and kick, we did, and guys were just being aggressive," said Kemba Walker.

Boston's head coach Brad Stevens made an interesting move in Saturday's game. In the second quarter, when their center Daniel Theis had to sit on the bench after committing the second personal foul, Stevens sent the following lineup to the court: Walker, Marcus Smart, Brown, Tatum and Hayward. Such a "micro-ball" squad caught Miami totally unprepared with its speed, quickness and aggressiveness. Brown played center on the court, and the moment of him ripping Adebayo of the ball and assisting Tatum for a fast break dunk was very impressive.

Nonetheless, Miami's head coach Erik Spoelstra made a very quick response in the second half. When Stevens tried to pull the same trick again, Adebayo, who focused on passing in the first half, turned on his attack mode. He kept charging Boston's rim using his size advantage and scored 19 points in the second half. Boston's micro-ball squad almost backfired.

"Our whole team was aggressive. Our whole team played with the right mentality," said Stevens.

"Look, this is the playoffs. So you deal with whatever is in front of you. They came out, Boston did, with great force in this game, and you do have to credit them for that. They sustained it for the better majority of the game. We were on our heels most of the game," said Spoelstra.