The outcome of game 4 between the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers was never really in question. The Cavs were clearly the better team, and that was apparent from the get-go. The game was very physical throughout, and there’s bound to be some bad blood leftover.
Cleveland was doing well on the offensive boards early, and good ball movement was getting Timofey Mozgov some easy looks. The Cavs started off shooting 6-9 from the field, and went up 17-8 early on. The Celtics were moving the ball well in the first quarter, but just couldn’t make shots.
In the first quarter, Kevin Love and Kelly Olynyk got tangled up while going for a rebound, and Love’s shoulder was hurt, as shown below.
Many Cavs fans will cry foul, claiming that Olynyk intended to hurt love. This pretty clearly isn’t the case though. Yes, it was a foul on Olynyk, and it’s unfortunate that Love got injured. However, Olynyk was just trying to keep Love away from the ball. It is my belief that he had no intention of hurting him.
Despite Love going to the locker room, the Cavs had a very successful first quarter, which they capped off with a 3 by Kyrie Irving with 11.5 seconds remaining. After the first quarter, the Celtics trailed 29-19 despite LeBron and Kyrie combining to shoot 3-10. That was a bad sign for Boston.
The Celtics showed some fight early in the second behind strong play from Jared Sullinger and Marcus Smart. However, Cleveland shut that down and went on to extend their lead to 19 behind strong play from LeBron, Iman Shumpert, and Mozgov.
The second dirty play occurred, this time on Cleveland’s end. Kendrick Perkins set a screen, and shoved Jae Crowder to the ground, then stared him down. That screen can be seen in this video:
Not shown in the clip is a poke to the side of the face that Perkins threw at Crowder past the referee. Perkins was given a flagrant-1 and both received technical fouls for the scuffle. Perkins probably should have been ejected for this, as it appeared to be completely unprovoked.
The game continued after Crowder took his free throws for the flagrant(both of which he missed). Cleveland continued to play well, and were up 21 at the half after a last-second layup from LeBron The Celtics had just 36 points at the half. None of their usual scorers were producing. Isaiah Thomas, key scorer, was a pathetic 0-7 from the field and 0-3 from deep.
The third quarter started off slow, with no scoring for around the first minute and a half. Then, J.R. Smith made arguably the dirtiest play of the game.
If you watch the video closely, looking at how Crowder fell, he really landed in an inopportune way. Crowder was out the remainder of the game with a sprained knee. Smith received a flagrant-2 for that strike to the face, and was subsequently tossed from the game. It remains to be seen whether or not he will receive further penalty
Not long after, the Celtics began to go on a run, and gained some momentum. Brandon bass threw down a monstrous putback dunk, on which he was fouled. Marcus Smart also had a huge putback slam. However, Iman Shumpert knocked down a 3-pointer to cool off the Celtics. The Celtics kept some momentum though, and Jared Sullinger tipped in a missed layup by smart at the buzzer to cut the Cavs’ lead to 9.
The Cavs had opportunities to pull away early in the third, but couldn’t capitalize, missing three 3-pointers early on. A bit later on the Celtics cut the lead to 8 after a 3 by Sullinger. The lead hovered around 10 for awhile as both teams continued to trade buckets.
The Celtics kept going on short runs, but somebody on Cleveland(often Kyrie Irving) would hit a tough shot to end the run. The Celtics wound up losing with a final score of 101-93, despite a late comeback attempt behind Isaiah Thomas hilarity.
The Celtics were doomed by their missed shots and turnovers. They had 14 turnovers to Cleveland’s 8. They also shot a horrendous 3-23 from 3-point range. Isaiah Thomas shot an excellent 12-12 from the free-throw line, but the charity stripe wasn’t so charitable to the remainder of the team. Outside of Thomas, the Celtics shot a dreadful 12-25 from the free-throw line. Really, with those shooting percentages it’s amazing that Boston only lost by 8.
Cleveland will go on to face the Chicago Bulls, unless the Milwaukee Bucks can become the first team in history to come back from being down 3-0 in an NBA series. The Cavs may be without Kevin Love due to his shoulder injury, and possibly J.R. Smith as well, who could face suspension.
