Rebounding disparity highlights disastrous Game 4 for Celtics

DALLAS — Parade plans had already been made, and the national media spent days discussing whether the Celtics were primed to become a dynasty. But 48 minutes of “details”, as Joe Mazzulla likes to call them, stood between the Celtics and Banner 18.

Mazzulla routinely stresses the details, the margins – rebounding, turnovers, shot attempts – as central to what the Celtics are trying to accomplish. So much so that when he was asked yesterday morning about whether the players relish the chance to compete for a championship, he said: ““I don’t know. I know they relish the margins, doing the things that go into winning.”

In Game 4, the margins could have not have been more lopsided in Dallas’s favor. The Mavericks out-rebounded the Celtics 65-39 – including 29-13 in the first half. They turned the ball over 13 times to the Mavs’ 8. While Dallas attempted 91 shots, the Celtics attempted 80.

“They came out super aggressive,” Jayson Tatum said postgame. “They played extremely fast and took more shots than we did. They were really concentrating on attacking the offensive glass. They got way more rebounds than we did.”

Tatum — who has led the team in rebounding with 9.8 boards per game this postseason — finished with five, his lowest total of the 2024 NBA Playoffs.

Dereck Lively II led the rebounding charge for Dallas, grabbing six offensive rebounds en route to a 16-point, 10-rebound double-double. No player on the Celtics grabbed more than 5 rebounds all night.

“D-Live was great,” Jason Kidd said. “His energy was great, his ability to give us second opportunities.”

Joe Mazzulla spent most of his postgame presser praising the Mavericks rather than criticizing the Celtics’ performance.

“I thought Dallas played great. Give a lot of credit to them,” Mazzulla said. “All their guys, whoever went in — well-balanced. Thought they played with a ton of energy and physicality. You’ve got to give them that. And they are a great team, and that’s Dallas, that’s the reason why they are here — when they play like that.”

That sentiment — that the game’s outcome was more of a reflection of Dallas’s elite play — was echoed by most of the Celtics players who spoke postgame.

“I think it was more about Dallas,” Al Horford said. “I felt like they were the better team tonight, clearly. They played much better.”

“I think they played hard physically,” Jaylen Brown said. “And then they dominated the glass,” “I think that was the key that put a lot of pressure on us.”

Derrick White had the most critical quote of the night.

“As we’ve seen today, they just played harder, and that’s unacceptable,” White said.

The Celtics ended up getting blown out 122-84, the third-largest defeat in NBA Finals history and an outcome that few could have predicted.

The Mavs outscored the Celtics 60-26 in points in the paint and 16-2 in second-chance opportunities, a departure from previous games. And while the 14-point advantage on follow-up opportunities was far from the only problem — Tatum himself pointed out the Celtics’ offensive stagnation — the uncharacteristic mistakes on the glass gave the Mavs life when the series was nearly over.

The Celtics spent two days discussing how they didn’t want to overlook Game 4 en route to a championship, but nonetheless came out flat when faced with the opportunity to focus on the details.

“Preparation doesn’t guarantee an automatic success,” Mazzulla said. “I thought we had a great process, I thought we had a great shootaround, I thought we had a great film session yesterday. I thought the guys came out with the right intentions.”

They will get another chance at a title on Monday, but they’ll have to be the harder-playing team in order to achieve that dream.

“We’re going to see how and why, exactly where the game was won and lost,” Brown said. “And then we take those experiences and then we come out and we play like our life depends on it. Because it does.”