CHICAGO — The Garden bull gang lives another day.

The nectar of the gods will be pouring out of the taps at The Fours on Canal Street. The smell of stale pizza will be wafting through the air on the sidewalk outside Halftime Pizza on Causeway Street. Attendants holding fistfuls of twenties on Portland and Friend Streets will be taking your $40 for you to leave your car for four hours.

The Bruins and Celtics are still alive. Both survived Friday night scares and guaranteed that the Garden won’t be dark for the rest of this sports spring. Our winter teams have each bought at least one more date at the Garden. Maybe more. Maybe a lot more.

The Bruins will play the Ottawa Senators at home Sunday afternoon (3 p.m.) in the sixth game of a best-of-seven series that could have ended for Boston about a million times Friday when the teams skated for 90 minutes in a double-overtime thriller. Boston’s rookie “plumber’’ Sean Kuraly (backhand goal) and fat-cheeks teen angel Charlie McAvoy (assist) made it happen for the depleted Bruins with a sudden-life goal in the midnight hour.

The Celtics, meanwhile, restored their dignity and their chances with a 104-87 Game 3 victory over the Bulls at the United Center Friday. The Celtics play in Chicago again Sunday, but Boston’s Game 3 win erased the nightmare notion of a Bulls sweep and assures that the Celtics and Bulls will play a Game 5 in Boston on Wednesday.

Whew. There were moments on freaky Friday when it felt like the Bruins and Celtics might both be done.

Boston sports fans endured a rough bunch of days in the hours leading up to Friday’s wins. Starting last Saturday, the Bruins and Celtics played playoff games on five consecutive days . . . and lost them all! The last four at home! Can we safely state that this has never happened before?

The Big Buzzkill started with last Saturday’s stunning Bruins loss in Ottawa. The Bruins went into that game with a 1-0 series lead and then took a 3-1 lead in the third period of Game 2, only to see everything dissolve in a three-goal flurry by the Senators. Ottawa won, 4-3, in overtime. That set a bad tone for the next four days in Boston.

Sunday night, the Bulls stunned the Celtics, 106-102, at the Garden.

Monday, Ottawa silenced the Marathon-fueled raucous Garden crowd with a 4-3 overtime win.

Tuesday, the Bulls danced all over the Celtics, 111-97, on the fabled parquet. Rajon Rondo accused his former team of quitting, Marcus Smart gave a fan the finger, and the Celtics were booed off the Garden court.

Wednesday, the impotent Bruins lost, 1-0, at home and fell behind, three games to one. The Bruins have been around since 1924 and have never recovered from a 3-1 series deficit.

Getting out of town proved to be a magic formula for both teams.

The Celtics wanted to get away so we’d stop suggesting they were the worst No. 1 seed in NBA history. Brad Stevens didn’t need to hear that he was 2-10 as an NBA playoff coach. Isaiah Thomas finally had a chance to go home to Washington and grieve the tragic death (car crash) of his 22-year-old sister. Then came the Friday morning news that the pouty Rondo has a fractured right thumb and would not play in Game 3. Rondo’s probably done for the series.

There was a new air of confidence about the Celtics when they took the court (little-used Gerald Green starting in place of Amir Johnson) and they bolted to a 37-17 lead. Boston canned seven 3-pointers in the first quarter. They looked like the 53-win Celtics.

Best of all, the Celtics withstood a counterpunch by the Bulls. Chicago cut Boston’s lead to a point early in the third. The Celtics of Games 1 and 2 would have folded at that point. Instead, the Green Team responded with a 14-4 run and turned the game into a 20-point rout in the fourth.

Without Rondo, the Bulls had no answer. They looked like the misfits they were during their 41-41 season. It was a seismic shift in this series, which now seems to be trending toward Boston.

The reeling Bruins, meanwhile, faced Mission Impossible in Ontario. The Bruins had lost 9 of 10 to the Senators. They’d lost three straight one-goal games. They could not solve the 1-3-1 trap. They had too many wounded defensemen and then they lost David Krejci early in Game 5. Then they fell behind, 2-0 — an insurmountable lead in this lockdown series. When Boston had an overtime goal nullified by official review, it was clear that this was just not in the cards. It felt that way right up until McAvoy’s shot was tipped by David Backes, then banged into the net by no-name Kuraly.

It was a great reward for sleep-deprived, channel-changing fans back home in the Hub.

Time now for the bull gang to make a new sheet of ice and keep the parquet squares stacked on the forklifts.

Walking hand-in-hand with their playoff hopes and dreams, the Bruins and Celtics are coming home.

Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Dan_Shaughnessy