MIAMI — Oh, right, so that’s Jayson Tatum.
That’s the Boston star who can carry a night. That’s the silky shot and the big fourth-quarter presence. That’s the player who was missing for mystifying chunks in the first three games of this Eastern Conference finals.
“He got hot tonight,” Miami Heat veteran Bam Adebayo said.
So, the Celtics got hot. It’s that simple. And suddenly that much more difficult for the Heat. Tatum was Tatum and so Boston became Boston in its 116-99 win over the Heat in Game 4.
We’re on the verge of a series again. Remember? The tension. The questions. The swirling talent of Boston coming into this series. We’re not back to that just yet. Let’s not parse every scoreboard and reverse course at every outcome.
The Heat still hold a 3-1 lead. They still have to be beaten the next three games. They still have a chance to close out the series Thursday in Boston, Saturday in Miami or (gulp) next Monday in Boston for a Game 7.
“I feel good about where we are,” Heat star Jimmy Butler said.
And why not? They’re one win from the NBA Finals, and the human-nature index was high in Tuesday’s loss. It wasn’t just the desperate Celtics trying to keep their season alive. A few hours before tip-off, the NBA practiced a trophy ceremony in case the Heat won. You don’t think Heat players were aware.
That ceremony rehearsal wasn’t even the worst incident of bad karma floating around this game. Serious question: Did the Heat not understand the pernicious symbolism in giving courtside seats to Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez?
They were teammates on the 2004 New York Yankees team that blew a 3-0 lead to Boston in the 2004 American League Championship Series. Boston conjured up that series leading into Game 4.
“Don’t let us win,” Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart each said Tuesday morning, summoning the line that first baseman Kevin Millar said when his Red Sox were down 0-3 that year. And there were Jeter and Rodriguez sitting courtside thansk to the Heat to keep the idea fresh?
Let’s say this: The Celtics were everything in Game 4 they weren’t in the first three games. Defense. Three-point shooting. Boston’s Grant Williams even blocked a Butler shot, grabbed the ball and didn’t say a word — unlike in Game 2. Not one.
That was in the middle of an 18-0 run by Boston that swung the night. The Heat led by nine points early in the third quarter, missed a few shots and, suddenly, Boston began making shots. Tatum, especially did.
He scored or assisted on nine of the 14 field goals in the third quarter. He then reversed course in the fourth quarter from a player who hadn’t scored a field goal this series in that stanza to the star who scored 11 of his 34 points then.
“I have not glanced at this closely enough,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, referring to a statistics sheet before him. “But I think categorially they won the possession game. They won the transition game. They won the 3-point game. They won the free-throw game, and they definitely won the rebound game.”
Early in this series, back in the first half of Game 1, Spoelstra chided his team about letting Boston take 3-point shots. The number says when Boston takes 40 shots from long distance they typically win. It made 19 of 42 (42.2 percent) in Game 4.
You didn’t need a stat sheet to feel the low energy on the Heat by that decisive third quarter. It was obvious. Jimmy Butler tried to grab the team and throw it forward by scoring 29 points with nine rebounds. But if Boston was back to being the team of the regular season, so was the Heat.
“We were getting stops, getting out in transition, the ball was popping, and we were just finding guys,” Tatum said. “We were like we were all season.”
The Heat, this one game, were, too. They won’t make only 8 of 32 shots from 3-point distance again, will they? They won’t have a putrid 18 assists against 15 turnovers ever again, either. Will they?
Adebayo averaged a double-double over the opening three games of this series. He came close to a single-single in Game 4, managing just 10 points with five rebounds. Enough said? Apparently not.
“I had four turnovers, only touched the ball seven times and missed two free throws back-to-back,” he said. “For me, man, next game got to be better.”
The stat thrown around is no NBA team has ever lost a series when up 3-0. They’re 150-0. But in Boston sports history they have those 2004 Red Sox. They saw Jeter and A-Rod there like warm ghosts. They’re a high seed playing an eighth seed. Some things are lining up for Boston to take a run at this if the Heat aren’t careful.
For three games, so much went right for the Heat. Everything did for Boston in Game 4. They served notice. That’s all. This isn’t a series just yet. But you can see one bubbling in the distance if they Heat don’t get back to being the Heat in Thursday’s Game 5.
