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As Dallas continued to pour it on in the fourth quarter and the lead distance between the two teams grew to 48 points, the largest biggest lead in the NBA Finals in the past 50 years, the Mavs were probably wondering "Where has this been all series?"
Indeed, Dallas' best effort of the series has likely come to late to make the Celtics truly sweat this Finals out, but with the massive margin of victory, the Mavs actually lead Boston in aggregate score across the four games. Unfortunately for Dallas, it can redistribute some of the 38-point margin from Game 4 to the previous contests, so it will have to work to replicate some of the tactical precision that put them so far ahead in this one.
Here are my three takeaways from Game 4 of the 2024 NBA Finals.
Lukaing Lively
Similar to the way Kristaps Porzingis injected a different energy into the game for Boston in Game 1, this one turned when Dereck Lively stepped onto the floor for the Mavericks. Jason Kidd went to Lively earlier than he has at any point in this series, subbing him just two an a half minutes into the game, and Dallas started to kick into gear soon after when Lively unleashed the best sequence of his burgeoning career.
The shock, of course, was the corner three that Lively hit, the first of his career. It was from the same exact spot where Xavier Tillman stunned the Mavs with a 3 of his own in Game 3, and you can surmise that it was just as unexpected by Jayson Tatum's reaction here. Lively followed up his three with some of his more familiar work, with his block on Tillman igniting a fast break that he punctuated with an alley-oop slam. Lively maintained his energy and effectiveness for the entirety of the game, or at least the competitive portion of it.
After matching his postseason high in minutes with 30 in Game 3, Lively likely would have surpassed that total if this game was close in the fourth quarter. In his 22 minutes in Game 4, Lively had 11 points and 12 rebounds and was a +20, his second straight game with a double-double.
Daniel Gafford's playing time continues to dwindle as Kidd places his faith in the rookie on both ends of the floor. Dallas has designed a pretty extensive and exhausting defensive scheme in order to provide Luka Doncic defensively, often playing a one-man zone with the center responsible for the low man to keep them closer to the basket. Boston is smart with its counters for this setup, though, and Lively is faster at processing the play and better at executing Kidd's plan than Gafford.
Here is a good example of Gafford being a bit slow on his read as the quarterback of the defense. Here he needs to communicate earlier with Doncic to swap assignments and send Luka to the perimeter while Gafford takes Brown in the corner. Gafford is very vocal letting PJ Washington know he has help behind him, but by the time he realizes that Boston is actually just trying to attract his eyes to the ball so they can free Tatum with a back screen, it is too late and Tatum gets a clean look from deep.
Now watch Lively execute in a similar situation. Boston once again wants to pull Dallas' center to the strong side before utilizing the man they are sagging off of (in this case Tillman) in a quick screening action so Tatum will have daylight to get off a shot. Lively is hip to it, though, and jumps out quickly to execute a switch. His ensuing one-on-one defense against Tatum is superb, and a great indicator of the kind of two-way force Lively is likely to become in the coming years.
Lively should start Game 5 in Boston, and I think Josh Green, who has been Dallas' best wing in this series, should as well. Gafford can still be a useful player for Dallas in a smaller role, but this Boston team is asking him to do a lot more defending in space than teams did in prior rounds.
Speaking of defending in space, Doncic played his best game of the series on that end of the floor on Friday night. I actually don't think the criticism of Doncic's defense was overblown after Game 3; taking nothing away from the tremendous, all-encompassing work he does offensively, attacking him was literally the other team's gameplan. That is a massive issue, particularly when he was performing so poorly and with such little effort when Boston managed to single him out.
However, one of the traps a lot of the analysis fell into (mine included) was believing that Doncic would have to spend the offseason fixing this flaw. He's obviously not going to become an All-NBA defender overnight (or ever), but playing with greater intensity and focus is something that you can do without spending a summer working on specific things. And credit to Doncic for showing more pride on that end of the floor, even if it is probably too late.
That can be the lesson for Luka, though. That if coast on your strengths for too long, champions will slip through your fingers quicker than you expect. Doncic played some excellent isolation defense against Tatum in this game, and he's had some standout sequences against other top scorers in the previous rounds as well. Now he will have to work on being able to do that every night instead of sporadically.
Flush and Forget
Joe Mazzulla pulled the plug on the game late in the third quarter, and for good reason. The Cs intentionality and attention to detail wasn't anywhere near the level of the three previous game, and that is somewhat expected. While Boston threw away the chance to join the 2016-17 Warriors and 2000-01 Lakers as the only teams to win a championship with two or fewer losses this millennium, the Celtics are still in a massively advantageous position.
Boston had won 10 straight postseason games entering Game 4, so a chance to win the championship on its home floor wasn't on the forefront of the Celtics' mind at tip. But once that Dallas lead got to 15 or 20, the idea probably started to feel a lot more enticing, and you begin to conserve your energy for that moment instead. It's the kind of mindset that will drive a coach crazy, especially if Dallas can prolong this series any further, but it is human nature. Dallas was due for a big night - Boston is not that much better than them - and the Celtics were kind enough to let Mavericks fans take something positive away from this Finals experience.
The inevitable "Can the Mavs be the first team to come back from a 3-0 deficit?" discourse only occurs in our 24/7, First Take, hyper-online society. In the 60s, Red Auerbach would be lighting a cigar on the flight back to Boston up 3-1. The Celtics still has to put together another complete, professional performance to earn their 18th banner, to be sure, but even in a game where they trailed by 50, there wasn't enough here to induce any sort of panic for Boston.
An Aggravating Victory?
Ironically, I feel like this result can be even more frustrating for Dallas than being swept would have been. Boston could afford to give away a game, so there's reason to be skeptical of how representative this result is of the relationship between these two teams.
But by winning in this fashion, Dallas proved it could solve some of the problems the Celtics have caused them, which only makes their failure to execute in previous games hurt even more. The Luka foul out and Hardaway Jr. minutes in the fourth quarter in Game 3 now represent a massive squandered chance for this series to be 2-2 heading back to Boston. That sequence will have ultimately decided the championship, and now the team that wedged the largest gap in Finals history will likely have to spend all offseason wondering why this series was never really close.
