Eighty-one seconds into the fourth quarter of Game 4, Jayson Tatum dribbled passed midcourt and with the help of a Neemias Queta screen, walked into a three-pointer. Kelly Oubre walked into his landing space for an and-1.
With that, the lead ballooned to 30 points and statistically, it was proof positive of Boston’s priorities this season: limiting turnovers, attacking the offensive glass for additional possessions, and generating good shoots, preferably threes.
“It comes down to controlling the game,
having an understanding of what’s going on. We did a good job managing the game even though our shots weren’t going down,” Joe Mazzulla said after the Celtics took a 3-1 lead with their second win in Philadelphia.
“Our offensive rebounds and our turnovers. Obviously, they’re going to make a run, but we were able to manage that with getting to the free throw line, being disciplined defensively, and some good offensive execution. We just gotta manage the game, being disciplined.”
With the game out of hand and Gino dancing somewhere near North Station, the scoreboard was obvious bottom line, but dig deeper into the box score and it was a game won in the margins.
Despite the return of big man Joel Embiid, Boston held Philly without an offensive rebound until midway through the third quarter. Andre Drummond, who once admitted that he intentionally missed shots to pad his rebounding numbers, didn’t grab any in Game 4.
After allowing a Game 2 blip — the 76ers hit 19-of-39 from behind the arc — the Celtics have absolutely used the three to bury Philadelphia. In a tightly contested Game 3, they were a +24 from 3 and with 10:39 left in the 4th of Game 4, they were already a +27 after hitting 17 of 38.
The turnover differential has not exactly been the edge they held in the regular season. With the Sixers packing the paint, Brown and Tatum have been drawing pesky double teams as soon as they get anywhere near the paint and that’s generated several loose balls and points on the other end. However, Boston leads the East in assists-to-turnovers ratio at 1.96. Comparatively speaking, the conference has been an absolutely slugfest; the Magic took a 3-1 lead over the one-seed Pistons shooting 32.6% from the field; the Raptors made just 32% of their shots to knot up their series with the Cavaliers. The Celtics, on the other hand, having been moving the ball well and so far, been making shots.
The postseason is all about making adjustments, but for the most part, Boston has stuck to their core principles and are on the brink of winning their first round series tonight for the same reasons they finished with 56 wins in a gap year.
