Zeller rescues Celtics; Last-second layup gives Boston improbable win.

Byline: Bill Doyle

BOSTON -- If you had to pick a Celtic to take the last-second shot to pull out the victory Wednesday against Utah, who would you have chosen?

Isaiah Thomas, who led the Celtics with 21 points?

Jae Crowders, who scored 18?

How about Tyler Zeller? That's right, Zeller.

Surprisingly enough, that's who sank the winning layup after Marcus Smart lobbed the inbounds pass to him under the basket. With two defenders around him and Utah shot-blocker Rudy Gobert hustling to get into the play, Zeller laid the ball in off the backboard as time expired to give the Celtics an 85-84 victory at the Garden.

Zeller said it was his first last-second, game-winning shot in his three NBA seasons.

After Gordon Hayward sank a 14-foot jumper with 1.7 seconds left to give Utah its only lead of the second half, 84-83, Celtics coach Brad Stevens called a timeout and drew up a play for Crowder to take a jumper, but Utah had the play covered well. So Smart called another timeout before he inbounded the ball. Stevens then called for Smart to lob the ball underneath to Zeller.

The 7-foot-1 Gobert, who had already blocked three shots, guarded the inbounds pass, leaving the 6-foot-8 Rodney Hood covering the 7-foot Zeller. Smart faked inbounding the ball in one direction to get Gobert off balance, then lobbed the ball to Zeller.

"Marcus made a heck of a pass,'' Zeller said. "He put it right on the money, and made my job easy.''

After Zeller caught the ball, he scored between Hood and Hayward.

"Gigi (Datome) walked up to me right before,'' Zeller said, "and said, 'You've got time for one shot fake.' That's exactly what happened. I caught the ball, saw Gordon flying in, so I shot-faked, and got the ball up.''

Zeller would have had a harder time scoring underneath if Gobert was guarding him instead of guarding the inbounds pass.

"If Gobert tips it,'' Stevens said, "that game's basically over unless it tips right to us. So it's easy to second guess that stuff, but I won't because I saw how long Marcus had to throw over just to get the pass to where it was.''

After his Celtics suffered their most lopsided loss of the season in Cleveland, 110-79, Stevens wasn't sure how they'd respond Wednesday at home against Utah.

"I'm interested to see,'' Stevens said. "I don't know how to predict it because I don't know some of these guys very well.''

Stevens said that because three of his players, including Thomas and Datome, were acquired only two...