Mavericks rout the Celtics in third-largest win in NBA Finals history… with Luka Doncic leading Dallas to a 122-84 win over Boston
There will be no sweep in the NBA Finals after the Dallas Mavericks were able to decimate the Boston Celtics at home in Game Four.
Boston shot terribly from the field and faced a halftime deficit of 61-35 from which the team could not recover.
It resulted in one of the most lopsided blowouts in NBA Finals history — with the 38-point defeat officially the third-largest single-game point differential of the championship series ever.
The worst upset in Finals history was the Chicago Bulls’ 42-point victory over the Utah Jazz in Game 3 of the 1998 NBA Finals. The second worst came from Boston, which defeated the Los Angeles Lakers by 39 points in Game 6 of the 2008 NBA Finals to win the title.
After receiving criticism the game before for his complaints following a foul, Mavericks guard Luka Doncic led the Mavericks with 29 points before being benched for the remainder of the game late in the third quarter.
Luka Doncic silenced the critics and led the Dallas Mavericks to a win to avoid a sweep
Boston shot the ball horribly in one of the most lopsided losses in NBA Finals history
Kyrie Irving was also benched early after scoring 21 points while earning his first win over his former team in 13 games.
Boston’s stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown combined for a 7-22 in a gruesome shooting night for the Celtics duo.
Tatum led the team with 15 points, while Brown managed just ten.
The Celtics’ two lesser-sung heroes – Derrick White and Jrue Holiday – also had off nights, scoring just six and 10 points, respectively.
Kristaps Porzingis, who was declared ready to play for the Celtics, did not receive a single minute of playing time from coach Joe Mazzulla.
Overall, Boston shot 36 percent from the field and just 34 percent from beyond the arc. By comparison, Dallas shot 50 percent from the field and 40 percent from three-point range.
Dallas avoided being swept in the NBA Finals for the only time in their history with the win, but they still face a huge 3-1 series deficit as the series now returns to TD Garden in Boston.
No team in the history of the NBA Playoffs has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit and won a series.