There will be no sweep in the NBA Finals after the Dallas Mavericks managed to decimate the Boston Celtics at home in Game 4.
Boston shot horrendously from the field and faced a 61-35 halftime deficit from which the team could not recover.
It resulted in one of the most lopsided losses in NBA Finals history: the 38-point loss was officially the third-largest point differential in a single game of the league championship series.
The worst blowout 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 beat the Los Angeles Lakers by 39 points in Game 6 of the 2008 NBA Finals to win the title.
After facing criticism the previous game for complaining after committing 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 victory to avoid the sweep
Boston shot the ball horribly in one of the most lopsided losses in NBA Finals history.
Kyrie Irving also went to the bench early in the blowout after scoring 21 points and earning his first win over his former team in 13 games.
Boston stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown went a combined 7-for-22 in a horrible shooting night for the Celtics duo.
Tatum led the team with 15 points, while Brown only had ten.
The Celtics’ two lesser-known heroes, Derrick White and Jrue Holiday, also had bad nights, scoring just six and ten points respectively.
Kristaps Porzingis, who was declared fit to play for the Celtics, did not receive a single minute of the game from coach Joe Mazzulla.
As a whole, 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 3-point range.
Dallas avoided being swept in the NBA Finals for the only time in their history thanks to this victory, but they still face a daunting 3-1 series deficit as the series returns to the TD Garden in Boston.
No team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a series in the history of the NBA Playoffs.