Summary
The holidays will wait for the Dallas Mavericks and the 18th championship in Boston Celtics history will wait too.
With their backs against the wall after losing the first three games of the final, the Mavericks visibly benefited from the energy of desperation to sign a resounding 122-84 victory in Game 4 on Friday, thus avoiding elimination and the sweep.
“We knew what we had to do, we can’t lose again. We will believe in it until the end,” said Luka Doncic after the match.
The Mavericks notably took a 48-point lead in the fourth quarter, the largest in a final game in at least 50 years according to ESPN.
Everything was going well for the Mavericks. Doncic had a near-flawless performance, the team’s bench produced offensively like it hadn’t since the start of the Finals and the Dallas defense dominated the Celtics’ star players.
“Everyone was involved defensively and we played with better rhythm,” Doncic commented.
Despite the injuries that have bothered him for several matches, Doncic did not hesitate to dominate his opponents physically and attack the opposing ring, en route to a harvest of 29 points. The only negative point of his evening was his 0/8 performance from downtown.
Kyrie Irving also added 21 points, while six other players scored at least five points for the Mavericks before the starters were pulled from the game in the third quarter.
After dictating the pace since the start of the series, the Celtics starters were unable to impose themselves offensively and had a poor shooting efficiency of 34.1%.
Jayson Tatum was the most productive among the starters with 15 points, while Jaylen Brown had 10 points. Sam Hauser took advantage of his playing time in the fourth quarter to finish the game with 14 points.
Quebecer Olivier-Maxence Prosper took advantage of the Mavericks’ victory to play his first minutes of the final.
The Celtics will have a second chance to get their hands on their first title since 2008 Monday night, at home, in Game 5.
“We have to play the same way in Boston. We know how difficult it is to play there, I know their fans will be loud. We have to stay focused and do the same thing as today,” Doncic said.
Doncic shows the way
The Mavericks wasted no time giving the Celtics a taste of what was in store for the rest of the game. Leading 15-14 in the middle of the first quarter, Dallas had an excellent sequence which allowed it to add ten points in a row to quickly take the lead. The Mavericks’ lead was already 13 points after one quarter.
Things did not improve for Joe Mazzulla’s men in the second quarter. With no response to Doncic’s 25 points in the first two quarters alone, Boston fell behind by 26 points midway through the game.
The Mavericks stretched their lead to as many as 36 points at one point in the third quarter, before the starters were pulled from the game with 1:29 left in the quarter.
The rest of the match was a matter for the bench players. Tim Hardaway notably obtained 15 points by multiplying successful shots from downtown.
