Boston Celtics: How Celtics Evened The Series

In a game that was messy and full of mistakes, the Boston Celtics came out on top in Game 4 to even their first-round series against the Atlanta Hawks.

It was sloppy and rough around the edges, but boy, was it a game that exemplified playoff basketball.

After a rather contentious Game 3 and a heroic performance from Isaiah Thomas, the Boston Celtics rallied to edge out the Atlanta Hawks in a 104-95 overtime victory Sunday evening, one that ties the teams at two games apiece in their first-round playoff series.

That isn’t to say that it was a win that came easy for the Celtics.

There were plenty of hurdles along the way and to the Hawks’ credit, they forced the Celtics to play their way from the opening tip (both teams played at a pace of 96.5 possessions per 48 minutes, per NBA.com/stats).

Similarly, the Celtics had no answer for a remarkable performance from Paul Millsap for the majority of the game (Millsap ended the game with 45 points on 19-of-31 shooting, with 13 rebounds, three assists, two steals and four blocks).

Although the game started slowly looking out of hand for the Celtics coming out out of halftime, the story for the Celtics started to change midway through the third quarter.

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After shooting 4-of-18 as a team from deep in the first half, the Celtics started to chip away at the Hawks’ lead, which was as much as 16 points in the third quarter.

The reasons for that came down to each team’s shooting in the third quarter.

The Celtics shot 47 percent from the field and 37 percent from beyond the arc in the third quarter. That turnaround was thanks in large part to Jonas Jerebko, who ended the game with 16 points(on 6-of-9 shooting from the field and 3-of-6 shooting from deep to go with 10 rebounds in 31 minutes.

For the Hawks, their fire from the field was starting to flame out and outside of Millsap, the rest of the Hawks who saw playing time in the third period combined to go 4-of-15 from the field and 3-of-9 from downtown.

The shooting disparity between both teams spilled over into the fourth quarter and that’s when the hero of the game emerged for the Celtics in Marcus Smart.