Celtics craze! Q&A with Johnny Damon

This story was excerpted from Ian Browne's Red Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

With the Boston Celtics just one Game 7 win away on Monday night from becoming the first NBA team in 151 tries to come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a postseason series, this seemed like the perfect time to talk to Johnny Damon.

Damon took center stage in Game 7 of the 2004 American League Championship Series against the Yankees when he belted two homers, including a grand slam, to lift the Sox to a 10-3 rout in the Bronx. The ’04 Red Sox are still the only MLB team to come back from 3-0.

Perhaps it was only fitting that Damon, who lives in Orlando, Fla., was in Miami for Game 6 of the Celtics-Heat Eastern Conference Finals on Saturday, proudly wearing his 2004 World Series ring. The Celtics pulled out a somewhat miraculous win on Derrick White's tip-in at the buzzer.

MLB.com: How did you end up at Game 6 of Celtics-Heat and what was it like being a spectator for a game like that?

Damon: My buddy I play golf with, he was like, ‘You’ve got to go because you’re one of the only people who know what this is like.’ What a crazy finish. When the game was over, people didn’t know who won. They were like, ‘Did he get the shot off on time? After [Jimmy] Butler hit those three free throws [to put Miami up by one] it was like, ‘OK, there’s three seconds of defense they need to worry about and they didn’t get it done.’

I still can’t believe the finish. I’m sitting around going, ‘Did that just happen?’ Certain things just don’t happen, and that happened. If [White] would have caught the ball, time would have run out. His fingers were a touch of God.”

MLB.com: When the Celtics won Game 4, did you start to think about what your team accomplished in 2004?

Damon: Not really too much until they won Game 5 because then all the pressure is on the Heat going back home after losing two straight. I remember after we won Game 4, it helped a lot, but we were all still stressing. We were still down, 3-1, and you've got to win this game, then you have to win another one and another one. That’s why it hasn’t happened much.

MLB.com: Four hockey teams have done this. But you are the only baseball team and the Celtics would become the first NBA team. You seem to be embracing that the Celtics could join your team in history. Am I reading that right?

Damon: Oh, of course. We had the greatest comeback ever until maybe another Boston team does it. The fact that we’re the only ones who have done it [in baseball], it would be great if they could talk about us forever. But we know another team has to come back from three games to nothing and hopefully, it’s [Monday] night.

MLB.com: Did you feel your team felt a little looser after each win during the comeback?

Damon: I think the shot of Jack Daniel’s definitely got us loose before every game.

Editor’s Note: Beginning with Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS, Kevin Millar started a ritual in which the Sox players took a symbolic shot of whisky before each playoff game. The superstition was maintained all the way through the World Series, in which the Red Sox swept the Cardinals.

MLB.com: Game 7 in 2004 wound up being your night. Even though you were having a tough series from an individual standpoint, do you remember the team feeling like you were going to win when you took the field that night?

Damon: Yeah, we felt like we were going to win. After I got thrown out at home in the first inning [on a Manny Ramirez single], I had to freeze because [Derek] Jeter almost caught that line drive and then Big Papi takes [Kevin Brown] deep on the next pitch. Then, obviously, the guys got on base the next inning for me and set me up for a historic home run. It’s a total team effort, 100 percent, to come back from 3-0, and I’m glad Boston has the fever again.