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Jaylen Brown's Dramatic Game-Tying Shot Earned a Rare Double Bang from Mike Breen

The announcer brought out the super-sized version of his iconic call.

Kyle Koster

David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports
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The Boston Celtics heavily flirted with dropping Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals to the Indiana Pacers and fumbling away home-court advantage, but some sloppy ballhandling by the visitors and a clutch triple by Jaylen Brown in the final seconds of regulation afforded them five extra minutes to right the ship. Boston eventually escaped with a 133-128 victory in an instant classic that transcended to a different level when Brown caught an inound pass in the corner erased a three-point deficit.

Mike Breen, who was unable to accept his Sports Emmy award for outstanding play-by-play announcing, rose to the moment with his traditional bang — and then added in another one for good measure.

While not exactly ubiquitous, the Breen Double Bang is not that rare. Last month, Bleacher Report was able to codify them all together in a 4 1/2-minute video celebrating the repetition. Trying to gauge social media reaction in real-time feels a bit arbitrary but there was some discussion about this game-tying shot not requiring the bang-bang. Which is just wrong because it's the Eastern Conference Finals, the Celtics did look done and dusted, and it came during a simply tremendous game.

If Breen can't say his favorite word twice in rapid succession then, when can he?

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Kyle Koster
KYLE KOSTER

Kyle Koster is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated covering the intersection of sports and media. He was formerly the editor in chief of The Big Lead, where he worked from 2011 to '24. Koster also did turns at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he created the Sports Pros(e) blog, and at Woven Digital.

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