The Hollis Brookline boys basketball team celebrates the game winning shot by Alton Williams, second from left, Tuesday night at Milford. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

MILFORD – There’s nothing like a game down to the wire in a hostile environment to get a team ready for its first trip to the postseason in several years.

That’s what the Hollis Brookline High School boys basketball team experienced on Tuesday night. And even better for the Cavs, they came up with a clutch 53-52 win over the Milford Spartans on 6-foot-6 junior Alton Williams’ five footer with 1.2 seconds left.

The win gave the Cavaliers, who have had a rough few years, a 14-4 final regular season mark. Meanwhile Milford fell to 5-12 with its fifth straight loss, and its postseason chances on life support if not extinguished.

But this one gets HB tourney tough.

“It absolutely does,” Cavs coach Ryan Kelley said. “In all reality, our last four games, we’ve been sick as dogs. This is the first game we haven’t had anybody home sick. This was absolutely the tuneup we needed to start to get back in the groove and hope we’re ready for next week.”

On the flip side, the Spartans are perhaps where the Cavs were last year, as they’re trying to learn how to win. Milford has lost five games by three points or less this season and it’s the second straight game they’ve lost on a last second shot.

“Learning to win is a nice umbrella,” Spartans coach Leo Gershgorin said. “We need to come into practice with a learning mentality. … I don’t want to be negative, I want to be realistic. It’s those critical decisions, may be the end of the game, may be a couple of minutes in. We’re not making the right decisions. Sometimes it’s us coaches, sometimes it’s the players. We’re in this together. … It’s a good group of boys, they work really hard. It’s the mental part of the game they’re learning.”

Case in point: Williams probably needed to be fouled or at some point a foul had to happen during HB’s last possession to force the Cavs out of their rhythm. “At the end of the game you want them taking it out with the corner 3, right?” Gershgorin said.

It was a horrendous start to the game for the Cavs, as the Spartans, who were led by Will O’Connell’s 21 points, stormed out to a 16-4 first quarter lead and were up at the half 26-15. But the Cavs, led by the tenacious defense of Yarie Ramas, fought back to tie the game at 38 before a 5-0 run gave the Spartans a 43-38 lead going into the final quarter. Ramas had seven of his 13 points in the third quarter, including two buckets off steals.

“Oh he’s our leader, every game,” Kelley said. “He’s our floor general at both ends. He leads the team in steals, level of aggression, all that good stuff. We’re nowhere near where we are without him. …

“The tenacity of our guys to show up in the second half, to respond to the level of intensity, the aggression that the Spartans had from the tip. It was a war. So for them to stay composed and be willing to just keep fighting, that was huge.”

Williams, who had a team-high 19 points (Dylan Kelley added 12), had his own steal and a jam to tie the game at 48 with 2:48 left. O’Connell had four points to give Milford a 52-51 lead, and the Spartans had the ball with 19.5 seconds left, But when it appeared a foul might be called on HB, it was instead ruled a jump ball and the arrow pointed the Cavs’ way. And Milford, which also got 15 points from Tyler Constable, never saw the ball again.

“Some games you’re dying over that call,” Gershgorin said. “But in a game like this, it should have never come down to that.”

Instead it came down to Williams getting the ball down low, and he just backed in, backed in, and found his spot. And his shot.

“It’s a shot I make a lot,” Williams said. “It’s on the block so I feel like it’s easy to make.

“We’re an older team now. Last few years we were a younger team. We’re older now and we’re feeling it.”

Feeling that tourney mode.