Rajon Rondo delivered the trash talk at halftime and the big plays in overtime.

And after one final defensive stand - maybe assisted by a Garden ghost - the Boston Celtics were two wins away from an improbable chance to play for another championship.

Rondo had 15 points and 15 assists, and scored the final three points of the Celtics' 93-91 overtime victory over the Miami Heat on Sunday night that evened the Eastern Conference finals at two games apiece.

Getting a huge break when LeBron James fouled out for the first time since he joined the Heat, the Celtics recovered after blowing an 18-point lead in regulation and moved two games away from a third trip to the NBA finals in five years.

Garnett added 17 points and 14 rebounds for the Celtics, while Paul Pierce scored 23 points before fouling out. Ray Allen finished with 16 points.

"Stops," Rondo said when asked what was the difference in the tight game. "I think we executed offensively, came up with some lucky plays and we got stops at the end."

James had 29 points and Wade scored 20 after another dismal start for the Heat, who host Game 5 on Tuesday.

"Not stressed the series is tied 2-2," James said. "It's great basketball, great competition. We wanted to get one up here and we didn't."

In a game that started as a Celtics blowout and turned into a foul and tension-filled fourth quarter, followed by the second overtime in this series, the Celtics held on when Wade missed a potential winning 3-pointer on the last possession.

"It was a good look. It was on line but didn't want to go in," Wade said. "Got the shot off I wanted and that is all you can ask for."

Celtics coach Doc Rivers had his own unusual reasoning for Wade's oh-so-close shot.

"Red wasn't going to let that go in. Not in the Boston Garden," he said of former coach Red Auerbach.

Mickael Pietrus drew James' sixth foul and grabbed two huge offensive rebounds that extended consecutive possessions for the Celtics, who lost Game 4 in overtime in a second-round series against the Heat last year with a chance to tie the series.

This time, they overcame their second-half stall on the offensive end by limiting the Heat to just one basket in overtime, by Udonis Haslem, who finished with 12 points and 17 rebounds.

"At the end you have a chance to win after 50-plus minutes and losing the MVP. Hey, you'll take that," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.

Rondo's layup gave the Celtics a 92-91 lead with 2:34 left, and neither team scored again until he made a free throw with 21 seconds to play. Wade, already finding it tough to locate any room with Chris Bosh out and then having to do it with James also on the sidelines, saw his potential winning attempt bounce off the rim as time expired.

"I don't ever think I've seen that before," Allen said of James and Pierce fouling out. "But Rondo's on the floor, I'm on the floor, Kevin's on the floor, Wade's on the floor. All that has to happen at that point is the game has to be won. We don't care what it looks like. We had plenty."

In what could have been the final Beantown game for the Celtics' Big Three, Boston scored 61 points in a sensational first half that concluded with some televised trash talk from Rondo. But the Celtics managed only 12 points in the third quarter, and Wade finally got going after managing just eight points on 2-of-11 shooting in the first half.

Associated Press in Boston

(China Daily 06/05/2012 page22)