The series of tweets from the Twitter account of Derrick White’s father captured everything.
With the Celtics leading, 79-72, after three quarters, Richard White — father of the 28-year-old Boston guard — pleaded for them to hold onto their narrow Game 6 lead against the Heat and bring the series back to TD Garden.
“12 minutes. Swing ball. Play defense. Love and Trust,” Richard wrote.
The tone of his tweets changed when Miami started to make its comeback, and the game — and the Celtics’ season — culminated with one inbounds play from the sideline, with Boston trailing by one and three seconds remaining.
Then, Richard’s son etched his name into Celtics history, with White tipping in a missed 3-pointer from Marcus Smart to give Boston a 104-103 victory.
“Omg that’s my boy,” Richard typed, before adding in a separate tweet one minute later that there’s now “7 because of 9” — referring to the winner-take-all Game 7 against the Heat on Monday, and White’s No. 9.
“I stood up,” Richard told The Athletic. “My wife and I slapped hands. And all we could say was, ‘Oh, my God.’”
According to a later tweet from Richard, that was White’s first game-winner.
White spent his first three collegiate seasons at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, and after redshirting a year, he played his senior season at Colorado — and his 18.1 points, 4.4 assists and 1.2 steals was enough for the Spurs to select him No. 29 overall in 2017.
In February 2022, the Celtics acquired him in a trade, and he started 70 of 82 games this season before coming off the bench in the last two games of the 76ers series and the first two games of the Eastern Conference finals against the Heat.
Richard lived in Boston until he was 8 or 9 years old, White said during a March 2022 episode of the Celitcs’ “View From The Rafters” podcast, and that made his father “happy” following the trade.
“Die-hard Red Sox fan, big-time Celtics fan,” White said on the podcast episode. “I sent him a picture of my jersey, and he was like, ‘Just to see White on that Celtics jersey, I mean, I couldn’t do it but at least my son could.’ So he was happy about that.”
Then, Saturday night, White ensured that Celtics fans — regardless of what happens in Game 7, when they could become the first team in NBA history to erase a 3-0 deficit — will remember his put-back shot long after his tenure with the team ends.
“The main thing is I get another game where we get to watch Derrick and the Celtics play,” Richard told The Athletic. “You want to win and everything, but (I am) a dad. And he’s our son. And we just like watching him play.”
So near the end of his tweeting Saturday night, Richard called on Celtics fans to “rest up.”
And then Richard recited two plays that most Celtics fans had probably thought about already Saturday: “Havlicek stole the ball. Steal by bird over to DJ.”
White’s name could now be synonymous with John Havlicek and Larry Bird, and his father was thrilled.
