How much difference can one spot in the NBA Draft sometimes make? Well my friends, look no further than the 2019 NBA Draft where Miami had the 13th pick with Boston right after them. The Heat took shooting guard Tyler Herro from Kentucky while the Celtics selected small forward Romeo Langford from Indiana. The story goes that C's GM Danny Ainge loved Herro when he crushed it at a pre-draft workout in Boston but that meant absolutely nothing as he dropped a career-high 37 points tonight at the Disney World bubble while Langford's utterly forgettable rookie campaign is already over after surgery on his wrist. Miami held on for a 112-109 victory in Game 4 to give them a 3-1 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals. Game 5 is on Friday night (8:30, ESPN) and I don't blame you for starting to drink already in anticipation of that one last disappointment from the C's.
Only 13 teams in NBA history have ever rallied from a 3-1 deficit although that includes Denver twice already this postseason-against Utah and the fraud Clippers. Boston has done it twice before but not in a long time: 1968 vs. Sixers and 1981 vs. Sixers. This is all glossing over the fact that the Heat are a better team right now at this moment. It doesn't matter how many high draft picks the Celts have on their current roster, Miami has more guys that can go off in a given contest while Boston cannot figure things out from game to game. In fact, since leading 2-0 in the last round vs. Toronto, the C's fell to 3-6 in their last nine games after this loss. Besides Herro (who has scored in double-figures every playoff game), Jimmy Butler (24 points, 9 rebounds), Goran Dragic (22 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals) and Bam Adebayo (20 points, 12 rebounds, 2 steals) all continued to play their roles to perfection and carve up Boston in the process.
The final score was closer than it really should have been because numerous questionable foul calls and replays all seemed to go Boston's way near the end. Make no mistake, as ugly as the first half was for both teams, the Heat outscored the Celtics in the first, second and fourth quarters therefore they deserved to win this more. Oh and the simple facts that the Heat had three times as many steals as the Celtics (9-3) while Boston turned the ball over an absurd 11 more times (19-8). Nobody in Green better illustrated the unpredictable nature of the Celtics than Jayson Tatum (9 rebounds, 3 blocks): he went scoreless in the first half then caught fire in the second half to the tune of finishing with a team-high 28 points. Two other Celtics scored 20+ points but just barely: Jaylen Brown had 21 points and nine rebounds while Kemba Walker notched 20 points with five assists. Marcus Smart (10 points, 11 assists, fouled out) picked a poor time to morph back into Marcus Smart when it comes to shooting as he went 3-for-12 from the floor including a disgusting 1-of-8 on 3-pointers. Props to Gordon Hayward (14 points, 7 rebounds in 31 minutes off the bench) who missed the birth of his son (after 3 girls!) this afternoon for this frustrating setback. You think his wife will hold that decision against him for the rest of his life?
You have to hand it to the NBA for sucking most of the life out of this series by putting two extra days off since Game 3 which in case you forgot happened way back on Saturday night which in 2020 terms was a lifetime ago. The first half was borderline unwatchable and it looked like anything but a game this deep into the postseason. Miami led by one point after the first quarter (24-23) and 50-44 at halftime-the first time that they were up at the break in this series while holding Boston to its lowest scoring first half of the playoffs.
We all know how poorly the Celts typically perform in the third quarter at the bubble but not this evening as Tatum caught fire and they outscored the Heat to trail by just one point (77-76) heading into the fourth quarter. To say that the last 12 minutes were a slog is being generous, is there anything more tedious than the end of a close NBA playoff game when there are roughly a thousand whistles and 500 replays/reviews? I didn't think so. Boston shot almost five percent better from the floor (47.6%-42.9%), they hit four more 3-pointers (14-10), grabbed six more rebounds (46-40), handed out eight more assists (28-20) and blocked three more shots (5-2). Bottom line: if they weren't so careless with the ball and/or if they found a way to slow down Herro a tad, this would have been a win.
The Celtics have already won when facing elimination this postseason but that was a little different scenario as they had blown a 3-1 lead vs. Toronto and had to survive Game 7 just to reach the Eastern Conference Finals. Adebayo appeared to pick up a hand/wrist injury late in Game 4 but he never came off of the court so who knows how serious it is. To lose to the Heat is one thing, I doubt that many Celtics fans realized how good they are but to lose in a gentleman's sweep (5 games) would be downright pathetic. I'd like to think that the C's have too much fight left in them to go out like that but if they get down early and/or big on Friday, do you have any confidence that they'll battle back and not fold? Yeah, me neither. Time to prove us wrong guys! PS I love Brad Stevens but are we starting to see that his teams only have a certain ceiling? Something to chew on until Game 5 tips off, I'll bring the alcoholic beverages-we'll surely need them.
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