The Boston Celtics trailed 61-52 early in the third quarter of game four at Miami, and it looked like they were less than 24 minutes away from being swept--but Boston led 81-71 after a 29-10 run in the next seven minutes, as the Celtics won 116-99 to save their season and force the Heat to travel to Boston to play game five. Jayson Tatum scored a game-high 33 points--including 25 in the second half--while also leading both teams with 11 rebounds and seven assists. Tatum shot 14-22 from the field, including 11-15 in the second half. Jaylen Brown had a solid game (17 points on 7-16 field goal shooting, four rebounds, four assists), and four other Celtics scored between 11 and 16 points: Derrick White (16), Grant Williams (14), Al Horford (12), and Marcus Smart (11).
Jimmy Butler led the Heat in both scoring (29 points) and rebounding (nine rebounds), but he shot 9-21 from the field, including 1-5 in the fourth quarter when he scored just five points. The Heat won the rebounding battle 44-39, but shot just 34-78 (.436) from the field, including 8-32 (.250) from three point range. The Heat committed 16 turnovers resulting in 27 Boston points, while the Celtics had 10 turnovers resulting in 14 Miami points. Although the final numbers illustrate succinctly how the Celtics were more efficient overall and how the Celtics won the possession game, for the first 26 minutes or so the Heat had the upper hand and looked very much like a team capable of finishing off the Celtics: in the first half, the Heat outshot the Celtics .526 to .450 while committing seven turnovers compared to the Celtics' eight turnovers. On multiple possessions, Heat players made straight line drives to the hoop without encountering any resistance, while the Celtics struggled to generate high percentage shots.
What changed? The "experts" will no doubt talk about "adjustments" but--as Lakers' Coach Darvin Ham mentioned regarding the Western Conference Finals and as Jeff Van Gundy has noted for many years--most often the best "adjustment" is nothing more complicated than playing harder at both ends of the court. Instead of jacking up low percentage, rushed shots, the Celtics attacked the paint to create open three point shots. The Celtics rely heavily on three point shooting--ranking second in three point field goals made and attempted, and sixth in three point field goal percentage--but perimeter shooting will not take a team very far unless it is supported by a foundation of tough defense at one end of the court and strong paint attacks at the other end of the court.
It is sad that with the Eastern Conference Finals still being contested there are Boston media members calling for first year Boston Coach Joe Mazzulla to be fired. The 34 year old Mazzulla is the NBA's youngest head coach, Tatum is 25 years old, and Brown is 26 years old; it is more than a little premature to write off any of those guys, regardless of the outcome of this series. Even if one insists that Mazzulla is being outmaneuvered by Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra, it should be remembered that Spoelstra is a two-time championship winning coach while Mazzulla took over the Celtics with no opportunity to run a full training camp or even hire his own staff. Whatever Mazzulla's stamp on this team will be, he has not yet had the chance to make it--but by leading the Celtics to a 57-25 record and two playoff series wins already he deserves to be afforded some time to prove what he can do.
No NBA team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit, and the Celtics are still a long way from becoming the first team to accomplish this feat--but game four at least showed a blueprint for how the Celtics could do this: Eliminate careless turnovers, exercise good shot selection, and play with high energy on defense. Those three bullet points may sound obvious, but what matters for this series is that (1) the Celtics failed to do those three things on a consistent basis in the first three games and (2) the Celtics demonstrated in game four that doing those three things is well within their capabilities. Most teams that trail 3-0 are fundamentally inferior to their opponents, but that is not the case here; there is no unsolvable matchup problem that the Heat pose for the Celtics, so the series boils down to mental toughness and game plan discipline. The Heat are smart, tough, and well-coached, but the Celtics did not have to do anything incredible or unsustainable to win game four, so the formula that worked once could work again.