NBA Finals: Game 4 Notebook

The second quarter held the key to Dallas’ 122-84 blowout win over Boston in Game 4 of the NBA Finals last night. It’s true the Mavericks held a 34-21 lead at the end of the first quarter, with Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving combining for 22 of those points on 9-for-15 shooting. But the Celtics had reason to be hopeful. They had taken some early hits from Dallas before, including in Game 3. Boston spent the first quarter aggressively getting into the lane and getting decent looks. They just weren’t hitting. There was plenty of time for this game to settle down and for the Celtics to do the fourth-quarter execution that has defined the 10-game winning streak they brought into last night.

But in the second quarter, Dallas affirmed that they weren’t ready to pack it in. You saw the Mavericks team that had won the Western Conference re-emerge. There was activity from the role players. Josh Green made some hustle plays. Derek Lively, en route to a 12-rebound night—seven of them on the offensive end—started making his presence felt.

Meanwhile, Boston’s offense deteriorated. The Celtics stopped going into the lane and began settling for threes. And predictably missing them. A game like this, where one team has a 3-0 lead, has psychological questions all over it. At what point does either the trailing team just mail it in, or the team with the lead decide they don’t want to play through the frustration of some missed shots and just come back for the next game? It was the second quarter of Game 4 that Boston seemed to subconsciously decide they’d rather just try again at home on Monday.

The stat sheet alone doesn’t tell how bad it was for the Celtics. They shot 36 percent for the game, which is ice-cold. They were only 30 percent in the decisive first half. Boston was 14-for-41 from behind the arc—but they were actually pretty decent in the second half (9-for-22) when it no longer mattered. No Celtic player scored more than 15 points, had more than five rebounds or passed for more than five assists. It was a debacle in every sense of the word.

Meanwhile, Dallas cruised even though Luka missed all eight of his three-point shots. The bench, which hit 11-for-18 from behind the arc, more than made up for it.

The Mavs put it all together last night and played with exceptionally high effort. Now, can they keep doing it? The schedule the rest of the way will have two days off between games (Monday, Thursday, Sunday), something that can be seen to benefit the desperate team, as they get an extra day to re-gather their emotions. But home crowds play a role in that too. The Celtics will likely get Kristaps Porzingis back on Monday, they’ll have their own crowd primed for a party, and the young Maverick frontcourt will have to respond in that environment. Dallas still has to win on Monday for this to be a series again.