COMMENTARY
The time of expiration on the 2016-17 Celtics season arrived at 10:54 p.m. Thursday. That’s the precise moment the final buzzer sounded on Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals, a 135-102 beatdown via the defending NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers, who advance to face the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals for a third straight season. And so the green fades to black, and the Garden, the hub of our sports winter, goes dark for the summer.
It would be tempting now that their season is in the past tense to eulogize them by saying they put up a valiant fight, right down their last heave, that there are reasons for pride even considering the hideous final score of the season’s final game.