2024 NBA Finals: Celtics stunned in lopsided loss to Mavericks in Game 4. What happened?

DALLAS — The Celtics entered Friday with an opportunity to become NBA champions in large part because of the metronomic consistency of their approach and execution. A ton of the credit for that belongs to head coach Joe Mazzulla, whose unflinching — and, at times, eyebrow-raising — commitment to a process-over-results, sweat-the-small-stuff style has helped transform Boston from a talented team given to occasional lapses into one that has functioned, for most of the last eight months, like a brutally efficient winning machine.

As Mazzulla told reporters before Game 4, though, a healthy share of the credit should also go to the team his Celtics had the chance to sweep.

“Dallas is a great opponent, because they test your discipline — like, every single possession,” he said during his pregame press conference. “And the second that you’re not where you’re supposed to be, or you don’t execute your angles properly, they take advantage of it.”

More often than not on Friday night, the Celtics weren’t where they were supposed to be, and didn’t execute their angles properly. And man, did Luka Dončić, Kyrie Irving and the rest of the Mavericks take advantage of it.

The Mavs’ star duo combine for 50 points to force Game 5 back in Boston 🤩🤩

Luka: 29 PTS, 5 REB, 5 AST, 3 STL
Kyrie: 21 PTS, 4 REB, 6 AST

Game 5: Monday, 8:30pm/et, ABC pic.twitter.com/3R7DaFrGrq

— NBA (@NBA) June 15, 2024

Dallas took a two-point lead midway through the first quarter on a corner 3-pointer by, of all people, center Dereck Lively II — his first career NBA triple, on just the third attempt of his rookie season — and never relinquished it. A 19-5 run gave the Mavericks a double-digit lead in the first quarter. An 11-0 jolt pushed the advantage to 25 in the second. An 8-0 stint in the third had the Mavs flirting with a 40-point margin before both coaches pulled their starters … and then Tim Hardaway Jr., Dallas’ No. 3 scorer during the regular season before getting exiled from the rotation for cold shooting and permissive defending, caught the kind of heater he hadn’t sparked in months.

The Mavs led by as many as 48…

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Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-06-15 13:55:34

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