The Boston-Celtics 2022 postseason roller coaster is back on track.
The Celtics overwhelmingly won the Miami Heat 102-82 in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals at TD Garden on Monday night after dropping a wild Game 3 at home on Saturday.
Jayson Tatum led the charge with the game’s highest 31 points, almost doubling the output of the Miami starter, who scored only 18 points. combine. Derrick White scored 13 points in place of the injured Marcus Smart, and Robert Williams added 12 points and 9 rebounds to help the Celtics finish the best 7 series 2-2.
C will be the perfect 5-0 following this postseason defeat and will appear to take the lead of the 3-2 series as the series returns to Miami for Game 5 on Wednesday night.
The points from the victory in Boston’s Statement Game 4 are:
Jayson Tatum’s positive thinking pays off
Tatam’s best match of the postseason came after the defeat-and Monday night was no exception.
The Celtics star bounced off his brutal Game 3 and achieved excellent all-round performance (31 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 blocks). He attacked the rim all night and scored 24 of these 31 points either on the paint (10 points) or on the free throw line (14 points).
Tatum’s 16 free-throw attempts have been the most common in the game since March 6.
Tatum also played an active role as a playmaker with five assists. His best was an incredible cross-court pass to Grant Williams.
Tatum is currently averaging 32.6 points with 51.4 percent of the shots following his postseason defeat.
The Celtics will prefer more consistency from the star player, but he has shown a very impressive ability to cope with poor efforts in clutch performance.
Fever crime gets cold like ice
Miami made history in several ways on Monday night-and none of them were good.
After scoring 39 points in the first quarter of Game 1, Heat scored 1 point in the first 8 minutes of Game 4. That’s right: 1.
They missed the first 14 shots And at 3:22 in the first quarter, Victor Oladipo’s three pointers didn’t reach his first field goal until he endured the longest drought to start the post-season match in 25 years.
The situation didn’t get any better as the Miami starter finished with 18 points, including 7 out of 36 points.
The Celtics deserve a lot of praise for flocking to Miami from the jump. The duo of Robert Williams and Al Horford (6 blocks total) provided excellent defense against Bam Adebayo to neutralize the heat tycoon after Game 3 of the breakout.
Jimmy Butler (6 points in 3 out of 14 shots) was suffering from a knee injury, so Miami set Tyler Hero aside and didn’t give an offensive answer.
If Oladipo hadn’t had his best offensive game in the playoffs, this game would have been even more rout.
Celtics will be treated carefully in Game 4
Another reason why this game never ends? Boston didn’t give the heat many free buckets.
After a whopping 23 turnovers in Game 3, the Celtics made only nine turnovers on Monday night. Jaylen Brown made more than seven turns on his own in Game 3, but recorded one turnover in a much more controlled Game 4 effort.
Heat is not a very talented attacking team and relies on their defenses to create an attack. Boston didn’t give them that opportunity on Monday night, and the result was Miami’s second-lowest scoring output in the postseason.
Derrick White sets the tone
This game was never suspicious. White showed the coveted aggression after scoring the first seven points in Boston and scoring a total of three points in games 1-3.
White chilled at 10 points in the first quarter, but still packed the statistics sheet and acted as a starting point guard with 13 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 steals.
White struggled aggressively throughout the series, but if Smart is forced to miss at any time, the Celtics want more effort than White gave on Monday night.